Sunita Williams retires from NASA after record-setting 27-year career

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams has retired from NASA after 27 years, closing one of the most accomplished careers in human spaceflight.

Her retirement took effect at the end of December, the agency confirmed on January 20.

Williams, 60, leaves NASA months after a mission meant to last just a week stretched into more than nine months aboard the International Space Station. The prolonged stay followed technical problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, forcing Williams and crewmate Butch Wilmore to remain on the station far longer than planned. They eventually returned to Earth in March aboard a SpaceX capsule.

Wilmore, who flew with Williams on the troubled test mission, had already left NASA last summer.

NASA described Williams as “a trailblazer in human spaceflight”, crediting her leadership on the space station and her role in advancing commercial missions in low Earth orbit. The agency said her work “has laid the foundation for Artemis missions to the Moon and advancing toward Mars”, adding that her achievements would “continue to inspire generations to dream big and push the boundaries of what’s possible”.

Across three space station missions, Williams logged 608 days in space, the second-highest cumulative total for a NASA astronaut. She also set the record for the most spacewalking time by a woman, spending 62 hours outside the station during nine excursions. Another milestone came when she became the first person to run a marathon in space, completing the distance on a treadmill while orbiting Earth.

Her departure marks the end of a career defined by endurance missions, technical firsts and a lasting impact on NASA’s future exploration goals, including the Artemis programme.