Sunita Williams retires from NASA after 608 days in space and three ISS missions

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, also known as Suni Williams, has retired after 27 years with the agency, concluding a career marked by leadership aboard the International Space Station and record-setting achievements in human spaceflight, NASA wrote in a blog post.

Williams’ retirement took effect on December 27, 2025. During her career, she completed three missions to the space station and logged a total of 608 days in space, ranking second among NASA astronauts for cumulative time spent in orbit.

She also spent 286 days on a single mission, tying with astronaut Butch Wilmore for the sixth-longest spaceflight by an American. Over the course of her missions, Williams carried out nine spacewalks, totalling 62 hours and six minutes, the most by a woman and the fourth-highest cumulative spacewalk time overall.

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Williams first flew to space in December 2006 aboard space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-116 and returned on STS-117 aboard Atlantis. She later served as a flight engineer during Expeditions 14 and 15, completing four spacewalks during that mission.

In 2012, she launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as part of Expedition 32/33. During the mission, she spent 127 days in orbit and later took command of the space station for Expedition 33, conducting spacewalks to repair critical station systems.

Her most recent mission began in June 2024, when Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Crew Flight Test. She later served as commander of the space station during Expedition 72 before returning to Earth in March 2025 aboard SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.

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Beyond her spaceflight achievements, Williams held several leadership and training roles within NASA. She served as deputy chief of the Astronaut Office, directed operations in Star City, Russia, and helped establish helicopter training programmes to prepare astronauts for future Moon missions.

A retired U.S. Navy captain, Williams is a native of Needham, Massachusetts. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master’s degree from the Florida Institute of Technology, and has logged more than 4,000 flight hours in 40 aircraft.