ALMATY (Kazakhstan), Feb 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — NASA’s Christina Koch returned to Earth safely after shattering the spaceflight record for
female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard the International
Space Station.
Koch touched down at 0912 GMT Thursday on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space, along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency.
Koch was shown seated and smiling broadly after being extracted from the
Soyuz descent module in the Roscosmos space agency’s video footage from the landing site.
“I am so overwhelmed and happy right now,” said Koch, who blasted off on
March 14 last year.
Parmitano pumped his fists in the air after being lifted into his chair
while Skvortsov bit into an apple.
US President Donald Trump congratulated Koch on Twitter.
“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!” he tweeted.
Local Kazakhs on horseback were among those to witness the capsule landing in the snow-covered steppe as support crews gathered around the three astronauts, NASA commentator Rob Navias said.
“I’ve never seen this,” Navias exclaimed, reporting that the men stopped
to chat with engineering personnel.
Koch, a 41-year-old Michigan-born engineer, on Dec 28 beat the
previous record for a single spaceflight by a woman of 289 days, set by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson in 2016-17.
Koch also made history as one half of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk
along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir — her classmate from NASA training — in October.
Koch will now head to NASA headquarters in Houston, via the Kazakh city of Karaganda and Cologne in Germany, where she will undergo medical testing.
Koch’s medical data will be especially valuable to NASA scientists as the
agency draws up plans for a long-duration manned mission to Mars.
The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, whose spaceflight in 1963 is still the only solo mission carried out by a woman.
Russia has sent only one woman to the ISS since expeditions began in 2000
— Yelena Serova whose mission launched in 2014.
Both Tereshkova and Serova are now lawmakers in the Russian parliament,
where they represent the ruling United Russia party.
Four male cosmonauts have spent a year or longer in space as part of a
single mission with Russian Valery Polyakov’s 437 days the overall record.
Scott Kelly holds the record for a NASA astronaut, posting 340 days at the
ISS before he returned home in 2016. — NNN-AGENCIES
