By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : A hero's welcome awaits Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams as she came back home safely Saturday after a 195-day record space odyssey with her six fellow astronauts.
US space agency NASA has planned a public welcoming ceremony for Williams and the six others who went up to fetch her from the International Space Station on space shuttle Atlantis. The seven returning astronauts are spending the night in California where the shuttle landed at 3:49 p.m. Friday (1:19 a.m. IST Saturday) after aborting a bid to land at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida due to bad weather.
Though well short of the 438-day world record set by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov in 1994 and 1995, Sunita's journey lasting 194 days, 18 hours and 58 minutes is the longest space flight by a woman. She surpassed June 16 US astronaut Shannon Lucid's 188-day 4-hour mark set on a mission to the Russian Mir space station in 1996.
On her very first space journey, Sunita with four excursions spread over 29 hours and 17 minutes also topped Kathy Thornton's 21-hour record to become the world's most experienced woman space walker.
"My hat's off to the team that really pulled off an awesome mission," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations at a post-landing press conference.
The challenges posed during the Atlantis mission are invaluable learning experiences that will help the agency prepare for future exploration, he said.
"Welcome back. Congratulations on a great mission," astronaut Tony Antonelli radioed Atlantis commander Frederick Sturckow from Mission Control in Houston as the spaceship's parachute billowed out in the thin desert air.
"It is great and wonderful to see all of them come back home safely," Sunita 's father, Dr Deepak Pandya, said after the landing.
"We all are holding our breath today," Pandya said earlier from New Jersey as his wife Bonnie and daughter Dina awaited her return at Houston. One of his nephews had come from India to watch the landing.
Sunita's family and the world at large had prayed for her safe return as the first Indian American astronaut Kalpana Chawla had perished with six other astronauts in the 2003 Columbia disaster.
According to Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach, Atlantis may be returned to Kennedy Space Centre in six or seven days riding piggyback on a modified Boeing 747. At that point, the orbiter will immediately begin processing for its next mission, set to launch later this year.
Williams' space journey began Dec 9 atop space shuttle Discovery. The Atlantis blasted off June 8 to fetch Williams and install new solar power panels aboard the International Space Station. American astronaut Clayton Anderson has replaced her as the new flight engineer on the station.
Atlantis' was the 118th shuttle mission and 21st mission to visit the space station. The next mission is slated to launch in August.