‘Not stranded’ Sunita Williams' Thanksgiving plans in space revealed

Sunita Williams and her ISS colleagues delivered a Thanksgiving message. In a separate interview, she revealed what their celebration would look like.

NASA astronauts are gearing up for weightless Thanksgiving celebrations in space. A family-focussed holiday that usually calls for massive domestic gatherings, even if to indulge in football marathons and parades on TV, will have Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore follow a similar pattern, but in different ways. The original Boeing Starliner duo has been living and working onboard the International Space Station for nearly six months since their early June takeoff. Yet, they still don’t perceive themselves to be stuck in the “stranded” status. The Indian-origin space hero previously even described space as her “happy” place despite the long-duration interstellar exile.

As Williams will be busy breaking bread and exchanging holiday traditions with her crew members this year, she offered a sneak peek into their day filled with celebrations.

Sunita Williams' Thanksgiving meal

Earlier this month, Williams shut down concerning weight loss rumours and speculations surrounding the alleged shortage of food due to their mission's unprecedented extension. She indirectly doubled down on the same sentiment in her Wednesday, November 27, interview with NBC News: “We have a bunch of food that we’ve packed away that is Thanksgiving-ish.” As per her proclamation, those aboard the ISS will be treated to “some smoked turkey, some cranberry, apple cobbler, green beans and mushrooms and mashed potatoes.”

Williams confessed that, like one’s on-Earth plans for the day, she will also be tuning in to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before feasting with her colleague Wilmore and SpaceX Crew-9 members Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov (with whom they’re scheduled to disembark for Earth, not before February 2025), among others.

Sunita Williams reassures that there's nothing to worry about

Despite the dramatic setbacks faced by their beleaguered Starliner capsule, including thruster malfunctions and helium leaks, the 59-year-old astronaut stood her ground about not being stranded. “Our mission control team and our management has always had an option for us to come home,” she said. “So yeah, we came up here on Starliner. We’re coming back on a Dragon, but there’s always been a plan of how we would get home.”

Adding to her previous reassuring claims about being in good health, Williams admitted, “We’re feeling good, working out, eating right.”

Contrary to the dismayed headlines surrounding the coverage of Williams and Wilmore's monthslong space voyage here on Earth, the former acknowledged that people are “worried” about them. Nevertheless, she passed on the message: “Really, don’t worry about us.”

NASA's official updates for a space Thanksgiving

On Wednesday, NASA detailed the history of Thanksgiving in space, noting that the 2024 edition of the festivities will mark “the third time” astronauts Barry “Butch” E Wilmore and Donald R Pettit celebrate the holiday up there. According to the official release, Pettit and his fellow STS-126 members, alongside the Expedition 18 team, dined on a similar feast of “smoked turkey, candied yams, green beans and mushrooms, cornbread dressing and a cranapple dessert,” as Williams’ description.

The US space agency's official social media platforms also released a Thanksgiving message video from Space Station astronauts, Suni Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Don Pettit. A brief synopsis of the quartet's long-duration mission revealed that they are “living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory. The goal of their mission is to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.”