After 27-Year Career, Sunita Williams Retires From ‘Space’

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, 60, announced her retirement from the space agency on Tuesday, ending her 27-year career, effective from Dec. 27, 2025.

During her career in Nasa, Williams completed three missions aboard the International Space Station and set various human spaceflight records. Currently, she is touring India. On Tuesday afternoon, she participated in an interactive session hosted at the American Center in New Delhi. Posters at the venue termed Sunita (Suni) Williams as NASA astronaut, Ret. and US Navy Captain, Ret.

During her fireside chat, Williams spoke on how an 8-day mission to the ISS turned into a once-in-a-lifetime challenge when their Boeing Space Flight developed some issues and their stay in the orbit prolonged beyond nine months, leaving behind a legacy of endurance and scientific excellence, that has shaped the future of human space exploration.

The former Navy Captain was born on September 19, 1965, to Deepak Pandya, a Gujarati hailing from Jhulasan in Mehsana district and a Slovenian mother, Ursuline Bonnie Pandya, at Euclid, Ohio, in the US.

Williams logged 608 days in space, second on the list of cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut. She ranks sixth on the list of longest single spaceflight by an American, accompanied by fellow NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, together logging 286 days during NASA’s Boeing and SpaceX Crew-9 missions.

She has a record of completing nine spacewalks, totaling 62 hours and 6 minutes, ranking as the most spacewalk time by a woman and fourth-most on the all-time cumulative spacewalk duration list. NASA said that Williams is the first person to run a marathon in space.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praised Williams as a trailblazer whose leadership aboard the space station paved the way for commercial missions to low Earth orbit.

Williams is an accomplished helicopter and fixed-wing pilot, having logged more than 4,000 flight hours in 40 different aircrafts.

She also held numerous roles including deputy chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office and Director of Operations in Star City, Russia.