Sunita Williams Sets New Female Spacewalking World Record

Sunita Williams reached the record of spending most-ever hours on spacewalks on Sunday beating previous female spacewalking record of 21 hours created by former American astronaut, Kathryn Thornton, ISS Flight Engineer.

Stepping out of the hatch with crewmate Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria to upgrade the International Space Station’s cooling system, the Indian-American astronaut, Williams recorded a new record of 22 hours and 27 minutes during her third spacewalk.

Sunita Williams, aged 42, is the second woman of Indian heritage to have been selected by NASA for a space mission after Kalpana Chawla.

Selected by NASA in June 1998, she is currently a flight engineer with the Expedition 14 crew on the International Space Station. She was launched on the Space Shuttle mission STS-116, aboard the shuttle Discovery, on 10 December 2006. [via CNN]