Sunita Williams on second space trip
16 July 2012 2:01 AM GMT
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and two others on Sunday blasted off successfully on a Russian spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the International Space Station.
Sunita along with Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide left for the ISS aboard a Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-05M at 0810 IST.
46-year-old Williams will be a flight engineer on the station’s Expedition 32 crew and will become commander of Expedition 33 on reaching the space station. This is Sunita’s second space mission.
Williams, whose father hailed from Gujarat, was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1998. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15. She holds the record of the longest spaceflight (195 days) for female space travellers.
She received a master’s degree from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1995.
In the space, Williams and her team of astronauts plan an orbital sporting event to mark the Summer Olympics in London.
‘Becoming an astronaut was a little bit of happenstance for me,’ says Sunita Williams, an Indian-American astronaut who took off on her second space journey on Sunday onboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Williams, 46, who wanted to be a veterinary doctor when she was young, said ‘I mean, I grew up in a family with a dad who immigrated from India, and my mother who was an X-ray technician in a hospital, they met each other when he was going through residency.
‘And there was nothing in my past that had lended itself to anything that had to do with space except for watching The Jetsons and Star Trek and stuff when I was little.’
‘So I never thought it was possible. I mean, it just wasn’t a topic in our, in our household, it was more about, you know, medicine. I loved animals, I wanted to be a vet,’ she said in a pre-flight interview to NASA. ‘Becoming an astronaut was a little bit of happenstance for me.’Â
Talking about the risks involved in the job, Williams said, ‘... yeah, there are some risks, but, you know, they’re calculated risks. We’re trained pretty thoroughly for all of that risk, just as astronauts and professionals.’
WILLIAMS WILL WATCH OLYMPICS FROM SPACE
A sports lover herself, Sunita Williams is excited about watching the London Olympics from the space and is looking forward to have some sort of relay race at her current home - the International Space Station.
46-year-old Indian-origin astronaut Williams along with her two colleagues on Sunday took off for her second space odyssey on a Russian Soyuz rocket, which blasted off successfully from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Williams, who was into sports during her days in the Naval Academy, said that she will be excited to watch the London Olympics from the station and put a much more global perspective on the mega sporting event beginning 27 July.
‘I was on the swim team there, I was on the cross country team, on the bike club, so a lot about sports ... I went to jump school and stuff like that, just a lot of good outdoorsy stuff,’ Williams said in a pre-flight interview to NASA.
ASTRONAUTS TO USE VOTING FROM SPACE FACILITY
Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams, who took off for her second space mission on Sunday, will cast her vote from the International Space Station in the US presidential election to be held in November, just about a week before her return to the Earth.
Williams is scheduled to return on 12 November. Day for voting for the US president is 6 November So she will be casting her vote in the election through NASA’s special programme called ‘Voting from Space’.
Sunita along with Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide left for the ISS aboard a Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-05M at 0810 IST.
46-year-old Williams will be a flight engineer on the station’s Expedition 32 crew and will become commander of Expedition 33 on reaching the space station. This is Sunita’s second space mission.
Williams, whose father hailed from Gujarat, was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1998. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15. She holds the record of the longest spaceflight (195 days) for female space travellers.
She received a master’s degree from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1995.
In the space, Williams and her team of astronauts plan an orbital sporting event to mark the Summer Olympics in London.
‘Becoming an astronaut was a little bit of happenstance for me,’ says Sunita Williams, an Indian-American astronaut who took off on her second space journey on Sunday onboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Williams, 46, who wanted to be a veterinary doctor when she was young, said ‘I mean, I grew up in a family with a dad who immigrated from India, and my mother who was an X-ray technician in a hospital, they met each other when he was going through residency.
‘And there was nothing in my past that had lended itself to anything that had to do with space except for watching The Jetsons and Star Trek and stuff when I was little.’
‘So I never thought it was possible. I mean, it just wasn’t a topic in our, in our household, it was more about, you know, medicine. I loved animals, I wanted to be a vet,’ she said in a pre-flight interview to NASA. ‘Becoming an astronaut was a little bit of happenstance for me.’Â
Talking about the risks involved in the job, Williams said, ‘... yeah, there are some risks, but, you know, they’re calculated risks. We’re trained pretty thoroughly for all of that risk, just as astronauts and professionals.’
WILLIAMS WILL WATCH OLYMPICS FROM SPACE
A sports lover herself, Sunita Williams is excited about watching the London Olympics from the space and is looking forward to have some sort of relay race at her current home - the International Space Station.
46-year-old Indian-origin astronaut Williams along with her two colleagues on Sunday took off for her second space odyssey on a Russian Soyuz rocket, which blasted off successfully from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Williams, who was into sports during her days in the Naval Academy, said that she will be excited to watch the London Olympics from the station and put a much more global perspective on the mega sporting event beginning 27 July.
‘I was on the swim team there, I was on the cross country team, on the bike club, so a lot about sports ... I went to jump school and stuff like that, just a lot of good outdoorsy stuff,’ Williams said in a pre-flight interview to NASA.
ASTRONAUTS TO USE VOTING FROM SPACE FACILITY
Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams, who took off for her second space mission on Sunday, will cast her vote from the International Space Station in the US presidential election to be held in November, just about a week before her return to the Earth.
Williams is scheduled to return on 12 November. Day for voting for the US president is 6 November So she will be casting her vote in the election through NASA’s special programme called ‘Voting from Space’.
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