One of NASA‘s stranded astronauts has finally left the International Space Station (ISS) after being stuck inside for eight months – but she’s not headed home.
Sunita Williams had a much-needed change of scenery Thursday during her first spacewalk since arriving on the ISS on June 6.
Williams, the station’s commander, had to tackle some overdue outdoor repair work alongside NASA’s Nick Hague.
‘I’m coming out,’ Williams radioed at around 6.30am ET. The pair emerged as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles above Turkmenistan in Central Asia. The spacewalk is expected to take six and a half hours, concluding at around 1pm ET.
Williams and her crewmate Butch Wilmore were left stranded on the ISS after a malfunctioned Boeing capsule was deemed unsafe to bring them home.
They were only supposed to be on the ISS for eight days but have faced numerous delays. The duo are set to return in late March or possibly April.
Thursday’s spacewalk was the first by NASA astronauts since November 2023. But this was the eighth career spacewalk for Williams as this is her second stay on the ISS.
On January 23, Williams will conduct another spacewalk with Wilmore, marking the first time he will emerge from the station since the start of their doomed space mission.
NASA’s current plan is to have Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Russian Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov fly back to Earth after the SpaceX Crew-10 mission reaches the ISS.
That mission was originally slated to launch in February but was pushed back another one or possibly two months.
The extended stay sparked concerns about Williams’ health as medical professionals told DailyMail.com that she appeared gaunt in photos beamed to Earth from the space station.
Dr Vinay Gupta, a pulmonologist and veteran in Seattle, said: ‘What you’re seeing there in that picture is somebody that I think is experiencing the natural stresses of living at a very high altitude, even in a pressurized cabin, for extended periods.
‘Her cheeks appear a bit sunken – and usually it happens when you’ve had sort of total body weight loss,’ Dr Gupta added.
‘I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that [she] has probably been at a significant [calorie] deficit for a while.’
The body burns more calories in space as it adjusts to the changes in gravity and tries to maintain its body temperature in cold, harsh conditions – and to prevent muscle and bone loss, astronauts exercise about 2.5 hours a day, which burns more calories.
However, Williams hit back at the claims in a video interview, claiming she had actually put on muscle.
‘My thighs are a little bit bigger, my butt is a little bit bigger. We do a lot of squats,’ she said.
She added that she is the same weight as when she launched to the ISS in June, and bizarrely claimed the apparent change in her appearance was due to ‘fluid shift.’
‘I think things shift around quite a bit, you probably heard of a fluid shift,’ Williams said.
‘Folks in space you know, their heads look a little bit bigger because the fluid evens out along the body.’
NASA delayed the Crew-19 launch in December to give the agency and SpaceX time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft that will be used for the mission.
By the time the Starliner crew comes home, they will have spent at least 10 months in space.
During the Thursday spacewalk, Williams and Hague were tasked with repairing equipment that controls the ISS’s orientation, patching light filters on the NICER X-ray telescope and replacing a reflector device on an international docking adapter.
Additionally, the pair of astronauts must check access areas and connector tools that will be used for future maintenance work on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is a particle physics experiment module mounted to the ISS.
When Williams and Wilmore venture out into space together next week, the two astronauts will remove a collection of components designed to transmit and receive radio waves, and collect surface samples for microorganism analysis.
They will also prep a backup elbow joint for the Canadarm2 robotic arm, putting the joint into the optimal position for a quick replacement if needed.
In a press briefing before Thursday’s spacewalk, NASA Flight Director Nicole McElroy said: ‘The road to our preparations for all of these EVAs (extra-vehicular activity) has been going well.
‘The crew on board has been studying their procedures, getting familiar with all of the tasks, and are really excited and looking forward to going out the door.’
