Houston (NASA Inputs)– American astronaut  of Indian origins Sunita Williams will be back on Earth in February, 2025 now not in 24 hours time due to some technical issue with the Starliner that will now land back home uncrewed.

 NASA astronaut Sunita (Suni) L. Williams, a veteran of space expeditions, launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024, along with astronaut Butch Wilmore.

Originally part of a historic first crewed flight for Boeing, the pair docked at the ISS on June 6, 2024.

However, due to technical issues with the Starliner, NASA opted to return it uncrewed, leading Williams and Wilmore to stay aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 71/72, the NASA reported. 

They are now scheduled to return in February 2025 aboard SpaceX Dragon, alongside NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, part of NASA’s Crew-9 mission.

Williams, selected as an astronaut in 1998, has an illustrious career with two previous space missions (Expeditions 14/15 and 32/33), during which she spent a total of 322 days in space.

Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a place that has been her floating home, gym, and even kitchen. Social media is abuzz with viral videos of her sharing fascinating insights about life in space, leaving earthlings both amazed and amused.

From performing “weightless workouts” to sleeping upside down without even realizing it, Sunita’s time at the ISS has been anything but ordinary.

In one of the viral clips, she can be heard explaining her unique exercise routines on the space station. “This is the bike, you notice the clip pedals, all you need to do is actually clip your feet in and start pedaling. You don’t need a seat—actually, I haven’t sat down for 6 months,” she says with a chuckle.

She further adds, "One of the cool things up here is that you can do things you can’t do at home, like single-leg squats! Down on Earth, you'd fall over, but not here."

With no gravity to deal with, Williams described the freedom she experienced while working out using a bench press to keep her muscles from wasting away.

Life aboard the ISS isn’t just about workouts and floating around, though. In a candid tour of the station, Sunita showed off the sleeping arrangements, which are as unusual as everything else in space.

“We have these little sleep stations—basically like phone booths—where we zip ourselves up in sleeping bags. You can sleep in any orientation. Right now, I’m ‘standing up’ but upside down, and I can’t even feel it!”

For Sunita, every part of the ISS had its quirks. “Here’s our kitchen,” she says, opening a compartment with a range of vacuum-sealed meals.

“It’s like opening a fridge—drinks, meats, vegetables, cereals, snacks, and yeah, candy too! Some of it is dehydrated, so we have to hydrate it before we eat.”

Her explanation of the space toilet had social media rolling in laughter.

"There are two functions, obviously. You have to aim well because it's tiny. For number one, we have a tube—yellow-coded, so we don’t mix it up!" she joked, describing the suction system that keeps things going the right way in microgravity.

Perhaps the most emotional part of Sunita’s experience, however, was looking down at Earth from the space station’s iconic cupola. "It’s impossible not to fall in love with this view.

I play this game where I try to guess where we are flying over, just by looking down. Sometimes, I’m right—like when we’re above Africa."

As she prepares for her return, NASA confirmed that Sunita and her crew are equipped with survival gear, “just in case we land somewhere remote.”

Her journey back is sure to be safe, but her stories from space will leave a lasting impact. 

For now, Sunita's return marks the end of an unforgettable chapter—one filled with zero-gravity adventures and breathtaking views of our planet from the heavens.

Her final message from space? "It’s been real, but I can’t wait to touch down again!"

NASA continues to share updates on her descent, and fans across the globe are glued to their screens, ready to welcome their space superhero back home  in February 2025.