Updated on Monday, December 04, 2006, 00:00 IST

Houston, Dec 04: Sunita Williams is all set to become the second woman of Indian origin after Kalpana Chawla to blast off on a space mission and spend six months at the International Space Station where US shuttle Discovery will leave her on completion of a 12-day repair job.

Sunita, 41, the daughter Deepak and Bonnie Pandya, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a final stretch of training and preparations for Friday's shuttle mission STS-116, the first night launch since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

The spaceflight is scheduled to lift off at 8:05 IST on Friday (Thursday, 9:35 p.M. US time) will take along the most rookie crew since 1988 as five of the seven members have never flown in space before.

Besides Sunita, the crew includes mission commander Mark Polansky, pilot William Oefelein, mission specialists Joan Higginbotham; Nicholas Patrick; lead spacewalker Bob Curbeam; and the European Space Agency's Christer Fuglesang, who will become the first Swede in space.

Describing as having most culturally diverse space shuttle crew, Sunita said she was aware of her mixed ethnicity and the interest her spaceflight has aroused in India.

"I am half Indian and I have got a, I am sure, a group of Indian people who are looking forward to seeing this second person of Indian origin, flying up in space," she said in a pre-flight interview released by NASA.

NASA says the Discovery shuttle will be on the most complex mission yet -- to give the International Space Station a new electricity system. The STS-116 will drop off Sunita for a six-month stay at the space lab.

Bureau Report