NASA is planning to bring Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams, who set a record
for spacewalks by a female astronaut, back to earth from the international space station in June.
Sunita, who replaced the European Space Agency’s German astronaut Thomas Reiter on December 9, 2006, was informed Thursday that she would return to Earth with the STS-117 crew on space shuttle Atlantis, targeted for launch on June 8.
That shuttle mission will carry her successor, astronaut Clay Anderson, to the station to begin his duty as an Expedition 15 flight engineer.
The decision comes after the successful landing of Expedition 14 crew members Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria, Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, along with the spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi.
The exchange of Sunita and Anderson was originally planned for the STS-118 mission, which has been further pushed for the targeted launch in August.
However, that flight, first set to fly in June, had to be postponed after an unexpected hail storm damaged Atlantis’ external fuel tank and delayed STS-117.
NASA managers approved the crew rotation on Thursday morning after a more detailed review determined there would be no impact on space station operations or future shuttle mission objectives.
Since an earlier crew rotation was possible, NASA managers decided it would be prudent to bring back Sunita and deliver Anderson sooner rather than later.
