NASA astronaut Suni Williams becomes woman with most hours spent on spacewalks
In the course of her nine total spacewalks, Williams has now spent a cumulative 62 hours and 6 minutes in the vacuum of space – more than any other woman in the world.
NASA astronaut Suni Williams has set a female spacewalk record after venturing outside the International Space Station with her fellow Boeing Starliner crew member.
Williams and Butch Wilmore, the astronauts who have unexpectedly remained at the space station for months after arriving in June on the Starliner spacecraft, conducted the spacewalk Thursday. For nearly five-and-a-half hours, the veteran spacefarers removed radio communications hardware and swabbed the outpost's exterior to collect potential microbe samples for analysis.
And when all was said and done, Williams had reached a historic milestone. In the course of her nine total spacewalks, Williams has now spent a cumulative 62 hours and 6 minutes in the vacuum of space – more than any other woman in the world.
The achievement came two days after Williams and Wilmore joined their fellow two Americans on the space station Tuesday for an exclusive interview with Paste BN. During the conversation with Dana Taylor, co-host of Paste BN's flagship podcast "The Excerpt," the astronauts, discussed life on the orbital outpost – as well as their delayed return to Earth.
Starliner crew complete spacewalk outside ISS
The spacewalk lasted from 7:43 a.m. to 1:09 p.m. ET and was streamed on NASA+ and NASA’s YouTube channel.
For Williams, who wore a white suit marked with red stripes, the spacewalk was the ninth of her career and second of January. Wilmore, who wore an unmarked suit, was making his fifth spacewalk, often called extra-vehicular activity in the parlance of space agencies.
The spacewalk was the 274th overall that astronauts at the International Space Station have undertaken to complete basic station maintenance and upgrades.
During the spacewalk, Williams and Wilmore removed a radio frequency group antenna assembly from the station’s truss before turning their attention to collecting samples of surface material from both the Destiny laboratory module and the Quest airlock, where crew members exit the station. The material will be analyzed inside the station to see whether microorganisms exist on the exterior of the orbital complex.
Suni Williams sets international female spacewalk record
Before the spacewalk had even come to an end, Williams surpassed the record for the most total time any woman has spent in the vacuum of space.
The previous record of 60 hours and 21 minutes was set in 2017 by now-former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. Whitson's 10 career spacewalks are still the most any woman has ever made, according to NASA.
After Thursday, only three other people in the world have spent more cumulative time on spacewalks than Williams.
The most experienced spacewalker in the world is Cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev, according to the European Space Agency. With 16 spacewalks and a total of 77 hours and 41 minutes outside of a spacecraft, Solovyev, now 77, holds the record for the most spacewalks performed.
As for the longest single spacewalk, that record belongs to NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms, who on March 12, 2011 lasted eight hours and 56 minutes outside the station.
Boeing Starliner astronauts due to return to Earth in March
Williams and Willmore, the two crew members of the ill-fated Boeing Starliner spacecraft, have found themselves unintentionally at the center of drama since the craft arrived June 5 at the International Space Station.
The veteran astronauts, who are on their third venture to space, were only due to be at the station for a matter of days before returning on the Starliner, a spacecraft intended to one day compete with SpaceX in transporting astronauts to orbit. That was before NASA uncovered a slew of technical issues with the spacecraft, including helium leaks and propulsion issues, that forced the space agency to opt to send the Starliner back to Earth without its crew.
The plan now is for Williams and Wilmore to return in late-March on a SpaceX Dragon capsule that arrived Sept. 29 at the space station with crew members on a mission known as Crew-9.
The Starliner astronauts are not able to return home before the Crew-9 team, astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, complete their six-month stint. The astronauts also must await the arrival of the Crew-10 mission, followed by a brief handover period before they can return.
This week, both President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk weighed in on the Starliner crew's lengthy stay, with Trump saying they'd been "abandoned" and Musk referring to them as "stranded." Trump indicated on Truth Social he'd directed Musk to "go get" the astronauts, though it's unclear if he had a different plan in mind other than the one in the works for months.
But despite the extended stay – the possibility of which Williams and Wilmore have said was part of their training – both remain in good spirits and simply are focused on the extra time among the cosmos.
“Being deployed for a little while is not unusual for any of us and that’s part of the game," Williams told Paste BN on Tuesday. "When you come to some place that’s a little bit different from home, you might not come home right away.”
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for Paste BN. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com