| Sunita excited about her maiden space walk |
| Press Trust of India / Houston December 16, 2006 |
| Indian-American Sunita Williams will make her debut spacewalk along with veteran astronaut Robert Curbeam late tonight as the two will try to complete the crucial task of rewiring the International Space Station and fix its solar array. Sunita, 41, who became the second woman of Indian descent to venture into space after Kalpana Chawla, said she was all "excited" to go out and check the planet. "It should be pretty nice.... It is a great opportunity. Hopefully, it will go just the same and we'll be just as good," a smiling Sunita, dressed in a red tee shirt and blue trousers with her loose hair flowing uncontrollably upwards in the zero gravity of the space station, said from the space lab where she joined the Expedition 14 crew. Spacewalking astronauts rewired half of the orbiting lab on Thursday and Sunita and Curbeam will try to complete the task. If they have time they will try to fix the solar array which is part of the space station's temporary power system. Aware of the excitement she has generated among Indians, Sunita, who has brought with her a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a small statue of Lord Ganesh and a letter written in Hindi by her father, said she wanted the people of India to dream like her, for "if you belive in it, it will come true." Sunita, who will remain aboard the ISS for another six months, said "It's just a nice place to live." The spacewalk, is scheduled to begin at 1337 hrs US time today (0107 IST) Sunday. Updated at 1300 hrs: The STS-116 and Expedition 14 crews continued cargo transfers and spacewalk preparations yesterday aboard Space Shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station. The crews also held their traditional joint news conference. Meanwhile, flight controllers continue to troubleshoot a problem with the retraction of a solar array on the station |
