Overview
- In new interviews at the Kerala Literature Festival, Williams detailed how five Starliner thrusters failed during ISS docking and how she and Butch Wilmore worked through the crisis piece by piece as an eight-day test flight stretched to nine months.
- She said the worst strain was not danger but uncertainty over her return date, noting her family’s emotional rollercoaster and the odd adjustment of remembering how to walk after nearly a year without gravity.
- NASA confirms her retirement took effect on December 27, 2025; the 27-year veteran who logged 608 days in space says she is passing the torch to crews preparing for Artemis and expects some FOMO watching friends head for the Moon.
- Williams is in Kozhikode from January 22–25 to inaugurate and headline multiple Kerala Literature Festival sessions, including children’s events and public conversations about life and teamwork in orbit.
- She praised ISRO’s human spaceflight effort and broader international collaboration, described India at night from orbit as a web of “connected nerves,” and quipped that she’d love to fly again but “my husband would kill me.”