American astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry E Wilmore went on a 10-day expedition to space in June 2024. However, their stay was extended due to a technical glitch in the Boeing Starliner test flight that was supposed to bring them home.
In the above backdrop, a video is being widely shared on social media in which Sunita Williams is seen inside a spacecraft. The video shows her giving a tour of a spacecraft and explaining the functions of a spacesuit.
Those sharing the video claim that it shows Sunita gearing up to return to Earth after 127 days.
A social media user shared the video and wrote, “After successful 127 days of Space Tour, ‘Ms Sunita Williams’ retuning safely to Earth. This is Absolutely Mind Blowing video. Must Watch. (sic)”
SouthCheck found that the claim was false. The viral video is old and NASA has announced that the space mission to get her back to Earth can no sooner be launched than next year.
On closely observing the video, we found that the video had 'UNILAD' written in the top right corner. UNILAD is a social publishing company launched in 2014.
Taking this as a clue, we searched with relevant keywords and found a report on Sunita Williams published by UNILAD on December 8, 2023.
Titled ‘Astronaut shows the bizarre way they have to sleep in space’, the report had snippets of Sunita Williams giving a tour of the orbital laboratory, explaining how astronauts live in space. The report also had screenshots of the same video with the credit to NASA.
Further, we found the extended video uploaded by the official YouTube channel of NASA on November 20, 2012.
This confirmed that the viral video is an old video of Sunita Williams giving a tour of the International Space Station, and not her planning to come back to Earth.
Regarding her date of return, we found a report by Live Mint, which suggested that NASA is planning to launch the next Boeing Starliner in 2025 after the spacecraft faced a major setback during its crewed flight test in June this year.
NASA Commercial Crew X account also tweeted an update on October 15 about the Starliner saying, “Starliner, looking at windows of opportunity for a potential 2025 flight pending certification and operational readiness”.
Hence, we can conclude that the viral video is old.