Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have nearly half a century of combined experience as astronauts. But this is just their third time in space.
Ms. Williams was born in Ohio but grew up in Massachusetts. She was a test pilot in the U.S. Navy and has spent more than 3,000 hours flying 30 different aircraft. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1998.
Mr. Wilmore, a native of Tennessee, was also a Navy test pilot, and he flew combat missions over Iraq and Bosnia in the 1990s. He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2000.
Their last trips to orbit were more than a decade ago.
Ms. Williams had two previous long-duration stays on the International Space Station, the second ending in November 2012. Mr. Wilmore served as the pilot of a space shuttle mission in 2009, and then spent five and a half months on the space station, from September 2014 to March 2015.
If they splash down as planned on Tuesday, this latest trip will have added 286 days in space for them.
For Ms. Williams, that will bring her total to 608 days in space, the second most of any American astronaut, behind Peggy Whitson. Ms. Williams also performed two spacewalks during this mission and holds the record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut, at 62 hours 6 minutes.
The post Who Are Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams? What to Know About the NASA Astronauts. appeared first on New York Times.
