Sunita Williams's post retirement India Visit: Talks about ‘home’ moment during a session in Delhi

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams has retired from NASA after 27 years. She completed three missions to the ISS holding a record of 62 spacewalks hours.

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams has retired from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) after 27 years of service, the US space agency confirmed. Her retirement took effect on December 27, 2025. Across her career, Williams, now 60, flew three missions to the International Space Station (ISS), spending a total of 608 days in space and logging 62 hours across nine spacewalks — a record for a woman.

Sunita Williams spent a total of 608 days in space while logging 62 hours across nine spacewalks. (Photo: Ravi Choudhary/PTI)

Williams is currently in India and on Tuesday, she spoke at the American Center in New Delhi, reflecting on how astronauts instinctively search for “home” once they reach orbit: “One of the first things you do when you get to space is that we all want to look for our home… I grew up in Massachusetts. My father’s from India. My mother is from Slovenia. I’m obviously looking for these places to call home.”

Timeline:

1998: Selected as a NASA astronaut

Dec 2006: First spaceflight

2012: Became International Space Station Commander (ISS) for Expedition 33

2024–2025: Flew on Boeing Starliner’s first crewed test mission; launched on June 5, 2024, and returned on March 18, 2025 after an extended stay of about nine months.

Dec 27, 2025: Retired from NASA

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