{"id":169687,"date":"2025-02-03T12:42:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T07:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/?p=169687"},"modified":"2025-02-03T12:42:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T07:12:16","slug":"sunita-williams-sets-new-spacewalk-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/sunita-williams-sets-new-spacewalk-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunita Williams Sets New Spacewalk Record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams has broken the record for the longest spacewalking time by a woman, surpassing the previous mark set by former astronaut Peggy Whitson. Williams has now accumulated a total of 62 hours and 6 minutes of spacewalking time over nine spacewalks. This milestone was achieved during her most recent extravehicular activity (EVA) with fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore on the International Space Station (ISS). The two have been on the ISS since June 2024 due to technical difficulties with Boeing\u2019s Starliner spacecraft, where they performed maintenance work outside the station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Highlights<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Record-Breaking Spacewalk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sunita Williams has now<strong>\u00a0accumulated 62 hours and 6 minutes of spacewalking time<\/strong>, breaking Peggy Whitson\u2019s record of 60 hours and 21 minutes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Williams ranks fourth on NASA\u2019s all-time spacewalking list.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The record-breaking spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 26 minutes, beginning at 7:43 am ET and ending at 1:09 pm ET.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Purpose of the Spacewalk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Williams and Butch Wilmore removed degraded radio communications hardware.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They collected samples to check for possible microorganisms on the exterior of the ISS.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Extended Stay on the ISS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Williams and Wilmore launched aboard Boeing\u2019s Starliner spacecraft in June 2024 for an eight-day mission.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Due to helium leaks and thruster malfunctions, NASA deemed the Starliner unsafe for their return.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>NASA now plans to bring them back to Earth in late March 2025 aboard a SpaceX spaceship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Williams\u2019s Achievements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This was her ninth spacewalk and Wilmore\u2019s fifth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 2012, Williams became the first person to complete a triathlon in space, using ISS exercise equipment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>NASA\u2019s Announcement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>NASA confirmed the milestone via a post on X (formerly Twitter).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The agency continues to monitor Williams and Wilmore\u2019s health and mission progress as they await their return.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams has broken the record for the longest spacewalking time by a woman, surpassing the previous mark set by former astronaut Peggy Whitson. Williams has now accumulated a total of 62 hours and 6 minutes of spacewalking time over nine spacewalks. This milestone was achieved during her most recent extravehicular activity (EVA) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":169703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5359],"tags":[68,868],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-169687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-february-2025","tag-science-technology-current-affairs","tag-space-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169704,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169687\/revisions\/169704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169687"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=169687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}