National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has chosen an Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, nee Pandya, as part of the 14th International Space Station (ISS) crew.

The mission will also have two other NASA astronauts – Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin – besides Sunita, as part of the replacement crew for the six-month-long ISS Expedition to be carried out September/October this year. Sunita will serve as a flight engineer for the mission, according to a NASA release.

Michael Lopez-Alegria will be the commander and the station science officer while Mikhail Tyurin will be the flight engineer and Soyuz commander.

Sunita is currently assigned to the Expedition-14 crew. She will join Expedition-14 in progress, to serve as a flight engineer, after travelling to the ISS with the crew aboard STS-116. Her selection caps the prospects, which began in 2003 when she was selected by the NASA as a backup crew member for one of its missions to the space station orbiting about 240 miles above earth.