Astronaut Suni Williams to retire from NASA after Starliner mission

• Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the crew of the 2024 Boeing Starliner mission, have now both retired from NASA.
• NASA announced Williams retirement less than a year after she and Butch Wilmore landed in Florida on a SpaceX vehicle.
• Williams retires after nearly three decades with NASA, holding the record for the most spacewalk time by a woman.

The two-person crew of the ill-fated Boeing Starliner mission in 2024 have both officially made their last trip to space – at least with NASA.

Astronaut Suni Williams has announced her retirement from NASA after more than 27 years with the U.S. space agency. Williams made her decision known a little more than five months after Butch Wilmore also retired as a NASA astronaut.

Together, Williams and Wilmore both piloted the Boeing Starliner capsule on its maiden crewed flight test to the International Space Station. The now-infamous mission was only meant to last a matter of days, but technical issues with the spacecraft left the crew on the orbital outpost for months before they instead returned to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle.

After a water landing in March 2025 off the coast of Florida, both Williams and Wilmore had hinted they might be open to returning to space – even after the unexpected long-duration mission they endured. Despite their retirement from the civil sector, spaceflight could still be a possibility for the two thanks to a booming commercial space industry.

Peggy Whitson, for instance, returned to the space station in June 2025 as part of a mission with Axiom Space – her second private spaceflight following her own retirement from NASA in 2018.

Here's everything to know about Williams, her retirement from NASA and a recap of the Starliner saga.

Suni Williams to retire as NASA astronaut

Williams' retirement was effective as of Dec. 27, NASA said in a Jan. 20 press release.

Selected as a NASA astronaut in 1998, Suni Williams, 60, made three spaceflights in her nearly three-decade career – all to the space station. Williams' first mission came in 2006 when she rode on space shuttle Discovery as part of the crew of STS-116.

Williams also launched in 2012 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a spaceport that Russia's space agency Roscosmos operates within Kazakhstan, for a 127-day mission to the space station.

A native of Needham, Massachusetts, Williams is also a retired U.S. Navy captain and pilot with more than 4,000 flight hours logged on 40 different aircraft.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praises Suni Williams

In a statement, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman thanked Williams "for your service to NASA and our nation.”

“Suni Williams has been a trailblazer in human spaceflight, shaping the future of exploration through her leadership aboard the space station and paving the way for commercial missions to low-Earth orbit,” Isaacman said. "Her extraordinary achievements will continue to inspire generations to dream big and push the boundaries of what’s possible."

In her own statement, Williams said, "it's been an incredible honor" to have served as a NASA astronaut.

“Anyone who knows me knows that space is my absolute favorite place to be,” Williams said. “The International Space Station, the people, the engineering and the science are truly awe-inspiring and have made the next steps of exploration to the moon and Mars possible. I hope the foundation we set has made these bold steps a little easier."

What NASA records does Suni Williams hold?

Williams has spent a total of 608 days in space across three different missions, second only to Peggy Whitson, who has spent 695 days in space on both NASA and commercial missions.

Among her accolades, in January 2025, Williams surpassed Whitson's record for the most total time any woman has spent on spacewalks. After completing the ninth spacewalk of her career, Williams has spent a cumulative 62 hours and 6 minutes suited up in the vacuum of space.

Only three other people in the world have spent more cumulative time on spacewalks than Williams.

Williams crewed ill-fated Boeing Starliner with Butch Wilmore

Williams and Wilmore were selected for the debut crewed flight aboard the Boeing Starliner capsule, which was propelled in June 2024 to the space station atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the mission was meant to last about 10 days.

Boeing continues to develop the Starliner spacecraft with the goal of it becoming a second operational vehicle for NASA to transport crews and cargo to the International Space Station. The missions would be contracted under the U.S. space agency's commercial crew program, under which NASA pays private companies to conduct orbital spaceflights using their own commercial vehicles.

SpaceX has already been making routine trips since 2020 to the space station under NASA's program using its Dragon capsule.

What happened with the Boeing Starliner mission?

The crewed Starliner test flight mission ended in failure when engineers discovered a slew of helium leaks and problems with the craft's propulsion system that stalled the vehicle's return to Earth.

NASA ultimately determined that the troubled Starliner capsule wasn't safe enough for a crew. In September 2024, the empty spacecraft undocked and made its way back to Earth for a parachute-assisted landing in the New Mexico desert.

NASA also opted to keep Williams and Wilmore at the station a few extra months rather than launch an emergency mission to return them to Earth and leave the station understaffed.

Over the course of the mission, Wilmore and Williams repeatedly pushed back against the notion that they were "stuck" in space – a claim most prominently put forward by President Donald Trump. Instead, the astronauts insisted that they were prepared and trained for a long-duration mission, a situation they understood was possible when flying on a test spacecraft like Starliner.

Williams and Wilmore were ultimately at the space station for 286 days before returning in March 2025 with a SpaceX mission known as Crew-9 on a Dragon capsule for a water landing in Florida. The splashdown took place a few days after the arrival of the Crew-10 replacement mission.

Wilmore announced retirement in August

Wilmore, 62, previously announced his own retirement in August. The Tennessee native, first selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000, flew on three spaceflights during his tenure.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]