“I hope, and I think for sure, I’m gonna be going back to my father’s home country and visiting with people and getting excited about the first, or not the first, but the Indian national who’s going up on the Axiom Mission coming up, pretty awesome,” Sunita Williams said
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NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams has said that she is planning to visit India and will meet with ISRO’s team during her visit.
During NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Post-Flight News Conference Williams said that she found India to be ‘amazing’ each time her spacecraft passed by the Himalayas during her extended stay of nine months in space.
“I hope and I think for sure I’m going to be going back to my father’s home country and visiting with people and getting excited about the Indian astronauts who’s going up on the ISRO mission coming up,” she said.
Sunita Williams’ mother, Ursuline Bonnie Pandya (nee Zalokar), is of Slovenian-American descent, while her father, Deepak Pandya, is from Gujarat. Williams said she would love to share her experience up in the space with ISRO, and said it was great how India put its foot forward in the space sector, being a fellow democracy. “[It’s] pretty awesome- they’ll have a hometown hero there of their own that will be able to talk about how wonderful the International Space Station is from his perspective,” she said.
The astronauts launched aboard Starliner on June 5, 2024, expecting a short stay at the International Space Station (ISS). Instead, due to a series of technical failures, including malfunctioning thrusters and helium leaks, their mission stretched to 286 days.
Nasa eventually deemed Starliner unsafe for the return trip, leaving Wilmore and Williams stranded as officials debated their next steps. Their homecoming was further delayed by complications in launching their replacements.
In the end, SpaceX stepped in, ferrying them back aboard a Crew Dragon capsule. Their long-awaited return concluded with a smooth splashdown off the Florida Panhandle on March 18, 2025.
Despite Starliner’s setbacks, Nasa remains committed to maintaining competition between private companies for ISS transport. The agency still does not fully understand why Starliner’s thrusters failed, but additional testing is planned through the summer.