NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been making headlines since June of last year, when their eight-day mission to the International Space Station turned into an eight-month ordeal (and counting) after Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft experienced technical issues. Now, Williams and Wilmore will be pleased to hear that we’re finally talking about them for a different reason (that isn’t tabloid rumors about William’s health).
On January 30, Williams and Wilmore completed a 5.5-hour spacewalk outside the ISS, marking the space station’s 274th spacewalk in support of assembly, maintenance, and upgrades, according to a NASA statement. The extra vehicular activity (EVA) brings Williams’ total spacewalking time to 62 hours and six minutes: a new record for total spacewalking time by a woman astronaut and the fourth longest cumulative time overall.
“NASA astronaut Suni Williams just surpassed former astronaut Peggy Whitson’s total spacewalking time of 60 hours and 21 minutes today,” read an International Space Station X post. At the time, Suni was “still outside in the vacuum of space removing radio communications hardware.”
This is the second time Williams has broken the record for cumulative spacewalking time by a woman astronaut. Now in second place, Peggy Whitson surpassed Williams’ previous record in 2017. With ten EVAs under her belt, Whitson still holds the world record for the most spacewalks by a woman.
.@NASA_Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore wrapped up today’s spacewalk at 1:09pm ET (6:09pm UTC) today after spending five hours and 26 minutes removing radio communications hardware and searching for microbes. https://t.co/Tyo8a2ncos
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) January 30, 2025
The recent spacewalk was Williams’ ninth and Wilmore’s fifth. The objective of the spacewalk, however, was not setting a new record. Among other things, the astronauts were tasked with removing a radio communications unit and collecting microbiological samples from the exterior of the ISS to see whether the station is releasing microorganisms into space, and whether those microbes are surviving on the space station exterior.
Other astronauts on previous spacewalks had tried and failed to retrieve the faulty radio communications network, but Williams and Wilmore were ultimately successful, even though the task took longer than the three hours that Mission Control had planned, according to Space.com.
“It was jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, and then it came loose,” Wilmore said after the spacewalk ended, as reported by Space.com. The EVA brought him to a total of 31 hours and 2 minutes of spacewalking time.
Despite President Trump’s unexpected call for Elon Musk to bring the two astronauts back as soon as possible, NASA is currently still planning for Williams and Wilmore to return in late March or early April on a SpaceX Dragon craft. As for the idea that the two astronauts are in desperate need of rescue, this latest EVA strongly suggests otherwise. And who knows what other records Williams might break in the meantime?
https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2025/01/Suni-Williams-spacewalk.jpg
2025-01-31 21:25:18
