The Longest Sojourn in Space by a Woman

Sunita Williams, the Indian-American astronaut, set a new world record by making the longest flight in space by any woman.

She beat the record set by American Shannon Lucid in 1996 on a mission to the Russian Mir space station. Lucid was in space for 188 days, 4 hours last June.

"Early this morning, Mission Specialist Sunita Williams set the record for the longest-duration single spaceflight by a woman," NASA said in a statement.

If all goes well, she will touch her feat on Earth on Thursday as a tear in space shuttle Atlantis's heat shield and computer glitches on international space station have been corrected.

This is yet another feather in her cap. In early February, she broke the record of Kathryn Thornton's most time in a spacewalk by a woman. She set a new world record of 29 hours and 17 minutes in four spacewalks. And in April she ran the first-ever marathon in orbit, taking 4 hours 24 minutes.

Sunita started her career in NASA in June 1998 and she was launched on the Space Shuttle Mission STS 116 on December 10, 2006 to join the Expedition 14 crew as a Mission Specialist. Among the personal items she took her to the International Space Station are a copy of the Bhagavad-Gita, a small figurine of Ganesha and some samosas. As the decision to bring back Sunita has been taken by NASA, she is no longer expected to break the US single spaceflight record set by Michael Lopez Alegria.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/s_williams_record.html