The agency’s top medical official was responding to rumors that Suni Williams had lost an unusual amount of weight during an extended stay in orbit.
Suni Williams, a NASA astronaut currently on the International Space Station, is healthy and not suffering from any medical problems, NASA’s top medical officer said on Thursday.
The unusual pronouncement was prompted by news articles suggesting that Ms. Williams was experiencing health problems during an unplanned extended stay in orbit. That in turn set off widespread rumors on social media.
Ms. Williams, 59, addressed the issue directly on Tuesday during an interview with New England Sports Network.
“I think there’s some rumors around outside there that I’m losing weight and stuff,” she said. “No, I’m actually right at the same amount.”
Ms. Williams is one of the two astronauts whose stay at the space station was stretched from eight days to eight months because of propulsion problems with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that took them there in June. While taking pains to insist that Ms. Williams and Butch Wilmore, the other astronaut, were not stranded, NASA decided that Starliner would return to Earth empty and that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore would join the space station crew until February. They are to head home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft instead.
A photograph that NASA released in late September showed Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore making pizza on the space station. Ms. Williams’s face appeared sunken and thin.