Another Indian Woman To Go Into Space

Sunita Williams, an American astronaut of Indian origin, has been chosen to be a part of NASA's 14th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). Sunita will work as a flight engineer on the mission.
Williams, selected as an astronaut in 1998, is a graduate from Florida Institute of Technology. She received her commission as an ensign in the US Navy from the US Naval Academy in May 1987. She was designated a Naval Aviator in 1989, and graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993.Born in Euclid, Ohio, on 19 September 1965, She is the daughter of Deepak Pandya, a physician from Gujarat who migrated to the US. She is married to physicist-turned-US deputy marshall, Michael J. Williams.Sunita is the second astronaut of Indian origin to go on a space flight. She brings back the memories of late Kalpana Chawla who met with a tragic accident while the shuttle was re-entering Earth's atmosphere, and was burned to ashes. Everyone remembers the TV clipping of the space shuttle burning in the upper atmosphere.