Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams on Saturday made history when she set a new record for the longest uninterrupted space flight by a woman.
WASHINGTON: Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams on Saturday made history when she set a new record for the longest uninterrupted space flight by a woman.
At 1117 IST, International Space Station (ISS) engineer Williams, whose father hails from Gujarat, surpassed the 188-day, four-hour mark set by her compatriot Shannon Lucid in 1996, according to US officials.
It was not the first record set by Williams, who began her space journey last December 10.
Earlier this year, she logged 29 hours and 17 minutes in four space walks, eclipsing the record held by astronaut Kathryn Thornton for most spacewalk time by a woman.
And last April, she became the first astronaut to run a marathon in orbit, finishing it in four hours and 24 minutes.
Astronauts on Friday fixed a tear in the shuttle Atlantis's heat shield and repaired two main computers at the International Space Station after an unprecedented systems breakdown that lasted 48 hours, a NASA spokeswoman said.
"They got them running around 0030 IST," spokeswoman Brandy Dean said, adding the technical teams were monitoring the system to see how it reacted to the adjustments.
"For now it's working," she said. "This is good news. It's very encouraging."
Astronauts used a jumper cable to bypass a faulty power switch, NASA said on its website. The computers will run overnight for testing in the morning.
Russian flight controllers blamed the glitch on installation of the ISS' new solar panels, but the head of the Russian space operator RKK Energia said he did not blame the visiting crew for the problem.
"This is just a coincidence," Nikolai Sevastyanov said.
Mike Suffredini, space station program manager, said: "I think we're in good shape. We still have a lot of options to go through to recover these machines. We've got a talented group of people to look at attitude control."
Although the computers stabilise the station in orbit and manage critical oxygen and water supplies, the crew was not in danger, Suffredini said.
"We are in a very good position from a life-support perspective," Suffredini said. "We have plenty of oxygen on board," he said from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
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