NASA Astronaut Returns to Earth Making a Record of Longest Stay in Space

On Thursday, NASA Astronaut Christina Koch has returned safely to Earth breaking the spaceflight record for a female astronauts with a stay of 11 months aboard the International Space Station.

At 0912 GMT, Koch touched down on the Kazakh steppe after staying 328 days in space, along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency. She was blasted off on March 14 last year.

After being extracted from the Soyuz descent module, Koch was found seated and smiling broadly in the Roscosmos space agency’s video footage from the landing site. After landing, Koch said, “I am so overwhelmed and happy right now”. 

On her safe return, US President Donald Trump has congratulated Koch on Twitter. He tweeted, “Welcome back to Earth, @Astro_Christina, and congratulations on breaking the female record for the longest stay in space! You’re inspiring young women and making the USA proud!.”

Before starting her three and a half hour journey back to Earth, Koch told NBC News, that she would “miss microgravity”. She also said, “It’s really fun to be in a place where you can just bounce around between the ceiling and the floor whenever you want”, smiling and twisting her body around the ISS.

41-year-old Michigan born engineer, Christina Koch on December 28 also beat the previous record for a single spaceflight by a woman of 289 days, which was set by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson in 2016-17.

Koch has called three-time flyer Whitson, who is now 60 years of age, “a heroine of mine and a mentor” in the space programme after she surpassed her record. Koch also spoke of her desire to “inspire the next generation of explorers.”

In October, Christina Koch also made history as one of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with her NASA counterpart Jessica Meir, who is also her classmate from NASA training.

Initially, the spacewalk was postponed because of the unavailability of two suits of the size for a woman at the space station, which also led to the allegations of sexism on NASA.

Now, Christina Koch will head to NASA headquarters in Houston, via the Kazakh city of Karaganda and Cologne in Germany, where she will also undergo medical testing. Her medical data are of immense importance to NASA scientists, as the agency draws up plans for a long duration manned mission to Mars.

The first woman to touch the space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, whose spaceflight in the year 1963 is still regarded as the only solo mission carried out by a woman.

So far, Russia has sent only one woman to the International Space Station, since the expeditions began in the year 2000. Yelena Serova, whose mission was launched in 2014.

Both Serova and Tereshkova are now lawmakers in the Russian parliament, where they represent the ruling United Russia party.

So far, four male cosmonauts have spent a year or more in space as part of a single mission, and Russian Valery Polyakov’s 437 days is the overall record. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly holds the record of posting 340 days at the ISS before he returned home in 2016.