Maharashtra Legislative Council passes resolution congratulating Sunita Williams on her return

Mumbai: Maharashtra Legislative Council on Wednesday passed a resolution congratulating NASA astronaut Sunita Williams who returned to Earth after a nine-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The resolution was moved by House presiding officer Chitra Wagh. It was passed unanimously.

NASA astronauts Williams, Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth early Wednesday onboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which splashed down in the sea off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.

For Williams, an eight-day mission to the International Space Station turned out to be a challenge of a lifetime as problems cropped up on their Boeing space flight that stretched her stay in orbit to over nine months.

A former US Navy captain, Williams, 59, was born to a Gujarati father Deepak Pandya hailing from Jhulasan in Mehsana district and Slovenian mother Ursuline Bonnie Pandya, on September 19, 1965, in Euclid, Ohio. PTI ND VT NR