62 Hours Of Spacewalk, Gardening: How Sunita Williams Is Spending Time In Space

New Delhi:

Indian-origin NASA astronaut Sunita Williams (Suni), who has been dubbed as the “stranded astronaut” over his stay in space since June last year, has done some “amazing experiments” and indulged in over 900 hours of research.

Having spent over 600 days in space so far, for three different missions, the 59-year-old also did spacewalks for 62 hours and nine minutes, leading the women astronaut corps in spending maximum time on the activity. 

Ms Williams and her fellow astronaut Barry (Butch) Wilmore have been at the International Space Station (ISS) for several months. The duo had launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5 last year for its first crewed flight, and reached the space station on June 6 – for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission that eventually got extended. 

They, however, faced delays, space debris threats, helium leaks and technical glitches on the Starliner spacecraft on which they travelled.

Ms Williams is likely to be back on Earth in the next few weeks.

So what is it that Ms Williams is doing while orbiting the Earth, nearly 400 kilometres above?

On the way up to the ISS, the astronaut piloted the Boeing Starliner she helped develop, and which cost NASA 4.2 billion dollars. She, along with Mr Wilmore, saw the Starliner depart from the ISS and land safely on Earth on September 7. She also became the first woman astronaut to test a space capsule. 

At the ISS, Ms Williams helped with a lot of maintenance and cleaning of the football field-sized space station. She and her colleague helped replace many old instruments on the ISS and send back a lot of trash to Earth.

According to NASA, Ms Williams, Mr Wilmore and another astronaut, Nick Hague, “completed more than 900 hours of research between over 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations during their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory”. 

As Ms William’s stay got extended from weeks to months, the veteran of the three-space flight was then promoted to the role of ISS Commander, a rare distinction that placed the safety and security of the ISS on her shoulders. The ISS is possibly the single-most expensive engineering experiment ever to be undertaken by humans. It has continuously been inhabited by humans for the last 25 years.

Ms Williams had to accommodate extensive weight training in space, in her schedule, to keep her body fit and in shape as she floated around in near zero gravity in space. At  one point, there were swirling “rumours” about her health till she issued a clarification, saying she weighs the same as she did when she arrived at the ISS. Her “wild hair” also garnered worldwide attention, with US President Donald Trump saying: “I see the woman with the wild hair, good, solid head of hair she’s got. There’s no kidding, there’s no games with her hair.”

The astronaut has also taken a long spacewalk, also called an extra vehicular activity (EVA), and has completed 62 hours and nine minutes on the activity. 

On her last space walk on January 30, Ms Williams spent five hours and 26 minutes on EVA in an effort to upgrade the ISS. A fortnight before that, on January 16, she did a six-hour spacewalk.

She has also done some tests and experiments on her own physiology to have a better understanding of how the body reacts to the space environment. On an earlier visit, she ran a marathon in space.

As part of her outreach activities, Ms Williams sent Diwali, Christmas and New Year greetings to humans on Earth and even held a session with students of a school named after her. She even wished the participants of the 2024 Paris Olympics good luck from space.

Among other activities, the astronaut helped with some gardening in space by watering lettuce plants and studying them, in an effort which, according to NASA, could “show how less-than-ideal conditions affect plant growth and help scientists design systems to produce safe and nutritious food for crew members on future space journeys”.

Ms Williams also carried out experiments on how to recover water at the ISS through what NASA described as the packed bed reactors, referring to systems that “pack” materials such as pellets or beads inside a structure to increase contact between any liquids and gasses flowing through it. 

She installed hardware for the Packed Bed Reactor Experiment: Water Recovery Series (PBRE-WRS) investigation, to examine how gravity affects these systems aboard the ISS. The results could help scientists design better reactors for water recovery, thermal management, fuel cells and other applications.

While Mr Wilmore swabbed the exterior of the ISS, searching for life on the inside of the space station, his colleague experimented with other microbes. According to NASA, Ms Williams posed with bacteria and yeast samples for Rhodium Biomanufacturing 03, part of an ongoing examination of microgravity’s effects on bio-manufacturing engineered bacteria and yeast aboard the ISS. 

NASA says microgravity causes changes in microbial cell growth, cell structure and metabolic activity that can affect bio-manufacturing processes. This investigation could explain the extent of these effects and advance the use of microbes to make food, pharmaceuticals and other products in space, reducing the cost of launching equipment and consumables from Earth.

Ms Williams also carried out the BioNutrients investigation that demonstrated technology to produce nutrients during long-duration space missions using engineered microbes like yeast. Food stored for long periods can lose vitamins and other nutrients, and this technology could provide a way to make supplements on demand. She prepared specially designed growth packets for the investigation aboard the ISS.

Once she returns to Earth, Ms Williams will make another record having flown four different space capsules – Space Shuttle, Soyuz, Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Incidentally, during her long stay at the ISS, a seismic shift happened in the politics and governance in the US, and she became an unwarranted accomplice in the war between the Democrats and the Republicans. She did not wade into the war of words, steering clear and focusing on her singular job as an astronaut.