'Bit of a shock': Sunita Williams says 'struggling to remember how to walk' after 7-month-long space mission

Sunita Williams, stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024, says she’s trying to remember how to walk as she waits for a delayed return to Earth.

“I haven’t walked. I haven’t sat down. I haven’t laid down. You don’t have to. You can just close your eyes and float where you are right here,” Williams told students at Needham High School while sharing the challenges and joys of being stuck in space for nearly seven months..

The NASA astronaut admitted she hadn’t expected the extended stay, calling it a “bit of a shock.” “We knew that it would be probably a month or so, honestly. But the extended stay was just a little bit different,” she said as reported by People magazine.

Williams, 59, and her colleague Butch Wilmore have been stuck aboard the ISS after the Boeing Starliner capsule malfunctioned, forcing it to return without them. NASA has since turned to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring them home.

The two astronauts have now spent months aboard the ISS, celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and even casting their votes in the 2024 US elections remotely. Williams also conducted her first spacewalk since arriving at the station in January.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has criticised the Biden administration for failing to bring them back. “They have been waiting for many months on the International Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe,” Trump said, urging Musk and SpaceX to retrieve the astronauts. Musk, calling the situation “terrible,” confirmed that SpaceX would step in to help.

NASA initially planned to return the astronauts using SpaceX’s Crew-9 capsule, originally scheduled for a September launch. However, delays pushed the mission back. NASA later announced that the Crew-10 spacecraft, meant to relieve Crew-9 and bring Williams and Wilmore home, would now launch no earlier than March 2025.