New record among women cosmonauts - Sunnite Williams spent six months in cosmos

The American of Indian origin, Sunnite Williams, set new record among women astronauts in the length of space flight. Early yesterday (June 16, 2007), around 1 AM, Sunnite, who is an engineer on International Cosmic Station (ICS), beat the record after 188 days and four hours spent in cosmos. Previous record was set by her compatriot, Shannon Lucid, in 1996.

- By the way, four of six computers, which were out of order in the past few days on ICS, are now turned on and they are working in the trial mode – said the representatives of "Roskomos". The problem with the computers that form the basic system of ICS appeared in the night between Wednesday and Thursday.

After the trial plugging in of four of six computers, the experts from the Flight Administration Center in Podmoskovie, which observes the work of the station, stated that the remaining two computers would be turned on later. Russian cosmonauts Fodor Jurčihin and Oleg Kotov, who are settled on ICS, managed to activate the computers. Now the electronics functions property. The Flight Administration Center points out that these technical problems do not endanger lives of the station crew.

In the meantime, the members of the crew of American space craft "Atlantis", which is tied to ICS, went out in the open cosmos for the third time. Astronauts John Olivas and James Riley repaired "Atlantis", which was damaged during the recent takeoff from the cosmos port in Florida.

The astronauts have also managed to open the wings of the solar panels and to separate cables. It is possible that the American astronauts caused the problems in electric grid and influence the work of computers on ICS.