What 286 days in space felt like: Sunita Williams to share on April 1

Nasa astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Nick Hague will answer questions about their time in space at 12:00 am IST on Tuesday, April 1

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) astronauts Sunita Williams, along with her colleagues Barry 'Butch' Wilmore and Nick Hague, will recount their space mission during a postflight news conference at 12:00 am IST on April 1 (2:30 pm EDT, March 31), the space agency announced on Tuesday.

 

Williams and Wilmore were stranded in space for 286 days. They returned to Earth on March 18 along with Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who themselves spent 171 days in space as part of a standard long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

 

Initially intended as an eight-day test flight aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, Williams and Wilmore's stay in the flying laboratory was extended due to technical malfunctions.

 

Gorbunov will not participate in the news conference because of his travel schedule, Nasa said in a statement.   

The agency informed that the live coverage of the news conference can be watched on NASA+. It said that Nasa programming is also available via third-party services including Roku, Hulu, DirectTV, DISH Network, Google Fiber, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and on Nasa's social media platforms on X, Facebook, YouTube (Video programming), YouTube (Audio news conferences), and Twitch.

 

According to Nasa, Williams and Wilmore travelled 121,347,491 miles during their mission, spent 286 days in space, and completed 4,576 orbits around Earth. Hague and Gorbunov travelled 72,553,920 miles during their mission, spent 171 days in space, and completed 2,736 orbits around Earth.

 

During their extended stay at ISS, Hague, Williams, and Wilmore dedicated over 900 hours to research, carrying out more than 150 distinct experiments. They examined plant growth and development, explored the potential of stem cell technology to enhance patient care on Earth, and contributed to studies on how the space environment influences material degradation.

 

The crew also conducted a spacewalk and collected samples from the station’s exterior to investigate the survivability of microorganisms in space.