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Second woman of Indian origin in space

PHOTO: AP

MAKING HISTORY: Sunita Williams, seen waving in the last row, on Sunday became the second woman of Indian origin after Kalpana Chawla to board space shuttle Discovery. The crew leave a building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, before the lift-off at 7.17 IST. In the front row to the right is Commander Mark Polansky.

Houston: Sunita Williams on Sunday became the second woman of Indian origin after Kalpana Chawla to venture into space when the U.S. shuttle Discovery, with seven astronauts onboard, rose into the night sky on a 12-day repair mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

The shuttle blasted off with a thunderous roar in a cloud of white smoke and flame and reached orbit about nine minutes later also carrying with it a $11-million truss segment to add to the space laboratory.

The shuttle took off at 8.47 p.m. local time on Saturday, the first night launch by NASA in four years since the disintegration of space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

Formerly a navy test pilot, Ms. Sunita (41), is a flight engineer on the mission and will stay behind at the ISS for a six-month period replacing German astronaut Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency.

Ms. Sunita is expected to take a spacewalk with her colleague Bob Curbeam to help rewire the ISS space lab and also operate the space station's robotic arm, among other tasks. — PTI

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