Sunita Williams

Sunita Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is a former American astronaut and a United States Navy officer. She holds the records for longest single space flight by a woman (195 days), total spacewalks by a woman (seven), and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes).Williams was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15. In 2012, she served as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33.

Williams launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 15, 2012 as part of Expedition 32/33. Her Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-05M docked with the ISS for a four-month stay at the orbiting outpost on 17 July 2012. The docking of the Soyuz occurred at 4:51 GMT as the ISS flew over Kazakhstan at an altitude of 252 miles. The hatchway between the Soyuz spacecraft and the ISS was opened at 7:23 GMT and Williams floated into the ISS to begin her duties as a member of the Expedition 32 crew. She was accompanied on the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Aki Hoshide and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. Williams served as commander of the ISS during her stay onboard ISS Expedition 33, succeeding Gennady Padalka. She became the commander of the International Space Station on September 17, 2012, being only the second woman to achieve the feat. Also in September 2012, she became the first person to do a triathlon in space, which coincided with the Nautica Malibu Triathlon held in Southern California on Earth. She used the International Space Station's own treadmill and stationary bike, and for the swimming portion of the race, she used the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) to do weightlifting and resistance exercises that approximate swimming in microgravity. After "swimming" half a mile (0.8 km), biking 18 miles (29 km), and running 4 miles (6.4 km), Williams finished with a time of one hour, 48 minutes and 33 seconds, as she reported.

Sunita Williams was born in Euclid, Ohio, to Indian American neuroanatomist Deepak Pandya and Slovene American Ursuline Bonnie Pandya (née Zalokar), who have three children and reside in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Sunita is the youngest of three siblings, her brother Jay Thomas is four years older and her sister Dina Anna is three years older. Williams’ paternal ancestry is from Jhulasan, Mehsana district in Gujarat, India, while her maternal great grandmother Mary Bohinc (originally Marija Bohinjec), born 5 September 1890 in Leše, immigrated to America as eleven years old girl with her mother, an 1891 Slovene emigrant Ursula Bohinc née Strajhar.