Sunita Williams breaks spacewalking record at ISS

After spending nearly seven months in zero gravity, American astronaut Sunita Williams made history and broke the record for the total spacewalking time.

Williams finished her ninth spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 62 hours and 6 minutes breaking the previous record held by former astronaut Peggy Whitson at 60 hours. With this development, she has become the fourth on NASA’s all-time spacewalk list, according to the International Space Station (ISS).

In a post on X, the ISS announced that the NASA astronaut had “surpassed former astronaut Peggy Whitson’s total spacewalking time of 60 hours and 21 minutes today. Suni is still outside in the vacuum of space removing radio communications hardware.”

Williams, who has been stuck in space since June 2024, donned a suit with red stripes while fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore accompanied her in an unmarked suit. The event was live-streamed by NASA on YouTube and their website to honor Williams’ ninth spacewalk and the 92nd spacewalk by a US astronaut.

These astronauts have been working on Expedition 72 at the ISS since September 23, 2024. According to reports, Williams and Wilmore are expected to return on the Crew 9 mission by March end, completing nearly 300 days in space.

Space X founder Elon Musk is collaborating with NASA to bring the two astronauts back home. “The President has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the ISS as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,” he posted on X earlier. 

President Donald Trump also took to TruthSocial to announce that he has asked Musk to get the astronauts back while slamming the erstwhile Biden administration for leaving them for months at the ISS. 

“I have asked SpaceX founder Elon Musk to go get the two brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden administration. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!”, he posted.