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NASA’s Suni Williams — a record-setting astronaut who endured a monthslong, unplanned stay aboard the International Space Station during Boeing’s Starliner debacle — has retired after 27 years of service.
NASA announced on Tuesday that Williams’ retirement took effect at the end of December. Her crewmate on Boeing’s troubled Starliner test flight, Butch Wilmore, left NASA last summer.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman described Williams as a “trailblazer in human spaceflight.”
“Her work advancing science and technology has laid the foundation for Artemis missions to the Moon and advancing toward Mars, and her extraordinary achievements will continue to inspire generations to dream big and push the boundaries of what’s possible,” he said.
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NASA astronaut Suni Williams is pictured during an interview at Johnson Space Center on March 31, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
Williams thanked her colleagues for their support throughout her “amazing” 27-year career with NASA.
“Anyone who knows me knows that space is my absolute favorite place to be,” Williams said in a statement.
“The International Space Station, the people, the engineering, and the science are truly awe-inspiring and have made the next steps of exploration to the Moon and Mars possible,” she added. “I hope the foundation we set has made these bold steps a little easier.”
Williams and Wilmore spent over 280 days in space after their eight-day mission, which began in June 2024, was derailed when their Boeing Starliner spacecraft encountered technical issues. NASA decided it was unsafe to send the astronauts back on the spacecraft, and it returned to Earth unmanned in September 2024.
NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams pose on June 13, 2024, inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station’s Harmony module and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. (NASA)
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In the astronauts’ first interview after returning home, Williams told Fox News that she was glad to see President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk “involved” and “taking notice” of their predicament.
NASA astronaut Suni Williams gestures at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, on the day of Boeing’s Starliner-1 Crew Flight Test mission on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1, 2024. (Reuters/Joe Skipper)
“[It allows them to] understand that our involvement as a country, as a spacefaring nation, is really important throughout the world. It sets an example, and it shows our ability to be able to do the hard things, put people in space, operate in space, work in space, and then bring us back. It’s important, and I appreciate that,” she said.
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Williams, a native of Needham, Massachusetts, is also a retired U.S. Navy captain and accomplished helicopter and fixed-wing pilot, having logged more than 4,000 flight hours in 40 different aircraft.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in physical science from the United States Naval Academy and a master’s degree in engineering management from Florida Institute of Technology.