Relatives happy after Sunita Williams safe return

Family and relatives of Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams in Ahmedabad have expressed happiness over successful landing of the space shuttle Atlantis at the Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Ahmedabad, June 23 : Family and relatives of Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams in Ahmedabad have expressed happiness over successful landing of the space shuttle Atlantis at the Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The space shuttle touched down at 1.19 am (IST) on Saturday, after the earlier three attempts at landing were aborted due to bad weather.

Sunita lived on the International Space Station (ISS) for six months. She accumulated 194 days, 18 hours and 58 minutes during her spaceflight.

Sunita's relatives back in Ahmedabad have wished her a prosperous life.

"My eyes are wet with happiness. Prayers offered by lakhs of people have been answered. We pray to God that she should continue working like this and prosper in her life," said Vithal Pandya, Sunita's uncle.

Sunita's father Vijay Pandya in New Jersey is also a proud man and is looking forward to meeting his daughter soon.

"I have no words to express my joy and happiness. In our family it was Pandya and now Sunita. I am so happy that I do not have words to express," said Chaya Pandya, Sunita's cousin sister.

Sunita began her spaceflight in December, 2006 on space shuttle Discovery when she travelled to the ISS. During her stay at the space station, she set the record for the longest-duration single spaceflight by a woman on June 16. She passed the previous record of 188 days, four hours set by Shannon Lucid on a mission to the Russian space station Mir in 1996.

Although this is only her first spaceflight, Sunita became the world's most experienced woman walker in space on February 4 with four excursions clocking over 29 hours, 17 minutes to top Kathy Thornton's 21-hour space walking record.

ANI