US-born Sunita Williams, along with astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Mikhail Tyurin, have been selected as part of the 14th crew for the six-month long International Space Station Expedition. The expedition will be carried out in September this year. 37-year-old Sunita who will be flight engineer will join Expedition 14 after traveling to the station on space shuttle mission STS-116, NASA announced. This will be Sunita's first space flight. Michael Lopez-Alegria will be the commander and the station science officer and Mikhail Tyurin will be the flight engineer and Soyuz commander.

Born on September 19, 1965 in Euclid, Ohio, to Deepak and Bonnie Pandya, who reside in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Sunita is married to US-based Michael Williams. She has no children.

Sunita is a graduate of the Naval Academy. She graduated from Florida Institute of Technology and, in May 1987, received her commission as an Ensign in the US Navy from the US Naval Academy. In 1989, she was designated a Naval Aviator and in 1993, she graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993.

She was later assigned to Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 8 in Norfolk, Virginia. She made overseas deployments to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf supporting Operation Desert Shield.

Largely because she has logged 2,770 flight hours on 30 different aircraft, she was selected as an astronaut in 1998. She has since then been under training and waiting for a space flight assignment.

In 2003, Sunita was appointed by NASA as a backup crew member for a space mission to the space station orbiting 240 miles above Earth.