Astronaut Whose Return to Earth Keeps Getting Delayed Says She's Been 'Trying to Remember What It’s Like to Walk'

Mar. 15, 2025

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Pilot Suni Williams greets people as she walks out of the Operations and Checkout Building on June 01, 2024 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Williams, along with Commander Butch Wilmore, is heading to Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which sits atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Space Launch Complex 41 for NASA’s Boeing crew flight test to the International Space Station.Photo:Joe Raedle/Getty

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Pilot Suni Williams greets people as she walks out of the Operations and Checkout Building on June 01, 2024 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Williams, along with Commander Butch Wilmore, is heading to Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which sits atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Space Launch Complex 41 for NASA’s Boeing crew flight test to the International Space Station.

Joe Raedle/Getty

Astronaut Suni Williams, who has been stuck in space since June, is opening up about some of the things she hasn’t done in months.

“I’ve been up here long enough right now I’ve been trying to remember what it’s like to walk,” the Needham native told the students. “I haven’t walked. I haven’t sat down. I haven’t laid down. You don’t have to. You can just close your eyes and float where you are right here."

Williams, 59, and fellow NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, 61, have been at the ISS since June 2024 after their spacecraftexperienced mechanical issuesand was eventuallysent back homewithout them.

Williams also told students her extended time in space came as “a little bit of a shock."

Suni Williams, Expedition 72 flight engineer and commander, pose for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the International Space Station’s Columbus laboratory module.NASA

Suni Williams, Expedition 72 flight engineer and commander, pose for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the International Space Station’s Columbus laboratory module.

NASA

Currently, Williams and Wilmore are expected to return to Earth in the spring. In December 2024,NASAannounced that the spacecraft that will bring them home won’t be ready to launch until “no earlier than late March 2025.”

The pair of astronauts have celebrated multiple holidays in space, includingThanksgivingandChristmas— and in January, Williams went for herfirst spacewalksince arriving at the ISS months prior.

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Williams and Wilmore evenvoted in the 2024 U.S. electionsfrom space, a process that NASA made “very easy,” according to Wilmore.

The Dragon capsule that will take Williams and Wilmore homearrived at the ISSin late September 2024.

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts (from top) Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.NASA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

A handout picture made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on 24 August 2024 shows NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts (from top) Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams posing for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station’s Harmony module and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on 13 June 2024. NASA announced on 24 August that it will return Boeing’s Starliner to Earth without astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the spacecraft. The Starliner is expected to depart from the space station and make a ‘controlled autonomous re-entry and landing’ in early September. The agency said the uncrewed return will allow it and Boeing to continue gathering testing data on Starliner during its upcoming flight home. Wilmore and Williams flew to the ISS in June aboard NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. The two astronauts will continue their work as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew through February 2025 and fly home aboard a Dragon spacecraft with two other crew members assigned to the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, NASA added.

NASA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

NASA previously said it isworking with SpaceXto “complete processing” on the Dragon spacecraft for the mission.

source: people.com

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