On this Thanksgiving Day in orbit, the astronauts on board the International Space Station are prepared to break bread.
According to NASA astronaut Suni Williams, she will rejoice with her fellow crew members on the day off.
“We have a lot of Thanksgiving-type food that we’ve packed away,” Williams stated in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday. There were mashed potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, apple cobbler, smoked turkey, and cranberries.
She also mentioned that she will watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before enjoying a meal with her Russian and American coworkers.
Watch NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT for more of the interview.
For almost six months, Williams has been residing and working aboard the International Space Station. As test pilots on the first crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner space spacecraft, she and colleague NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore reached the orbiting outpost in early June.
The two intended to spend only a week or so at the ISS before taking the Starliner back to Earth. However, the pair had to stay in orbit for months longer than expected due to issues with the spacecraft. In February, Wilmore and Williams are expected to board a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to return home.
For NASA and Boeing, the troubled Starliner mission was a dramatic, months-long story. Williams, however, stated that she does not consider herself to be stranded in space.
We have always had the opportunity to return home, according to our management and mission control team, she stated. So, yes, Starliner brought us up here. There has always been a plan for how we would return home, even though we are returning on a dragon.
NASA denied reports in recent weeks that Williams had been having health issues while in orbit. The agency’s chief health and medical officer stated on Nov. 14 that Williams and the other astronauts on the space station are still in good condition, despite several press reports claiming the astronaut had lost a substantial amount of weight.
Williams told NBC News that she is happy and enjoying her time in orbit.
We’re doing well, exercising, and eating healthily,” she remarked. We also have a great time up here. People are concerned about us, you know. Don’t worry about us, please.
On September 7, the capsule returned to Earth without a crew, despite issues that arose during the Starliner’s voyage, mostly with its thrusters and leaking helium. Williams stated that seeing the Starliner mission through to its conclusion would have been pleasant.
She went on to say that she wouldn’t think twice about launching Starliner into space again if Boeing and NASA fixed the issues that occurred during the test flight.
Perhaps not tomorrow, as we need to apply some of the lessons learnt, she continued, but as soon as we see that we’re headed in the right direction and that we’ve resolved some of our problems, we will definitely act.
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