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National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Sunita Williams — 1 of 2 astronauts stuck for months astatine the International Space Station — has retired.
The abstraction bureau announced the quality connected Tuesday (January 20, 2026), saying her status took effect astatine the extremity of December.
Williams’ crewmate connected Boeing’s ill-fated capsule trial flight, Butch Wilmore, near NASA past summer.
The brace was launched to the abstraction presumption successful 2024, the archetypal radical to alert Boeing’s caller Starliner unit capsule. Their ngo should person lasted conscionable a week, but stretched to much than 9 months due to the fact that of Starliner trouble. In the end, they caught a thrust location past March with SpaceX.
Williams, 60, a erstwhile Navy captain, spent much than 27 years astatine NASA, logging 608 days successful abstraction implicit 3 presumption missions. She besides acceptable a grounds for the astir spacewalking clip by a woman: 62 hours during 9 excursions.
NASA’s caller head Jared Isaacman called her “a trailblazer successful quality spaceflight.”
“Congratulations connected your well-deserved retirement,” helium said successful a statement.
Boeing’s adjacent Starliner ngo volition transportation cargo — not radical — to the abstraction station. NASA wants to marque definite each of the capsule's thruster and different issues are solved earlier putting anyone connected board. The proceedings tally volition instrumentality spot aboriginal this year.
