NASA astronaut, Christina Koch ended her elongated journey and returned from the International Space Station along with astronaut Luca Parmitano of European Space Agency and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, on Thursday, 6th February 2020. The three embarked on a Soyuz capsule anchored at the International Space Station around 12:50 AM EST and touched down as scheduled around 4:12 AM EST in Kazakhstan.
Christina Koch’s journey was noteworthy as it set a record, officially making her stay to be the second-longest in space as a U.S. astronaut, with 328 consecutive days at the ISS. It was expected to originally be a six-month mission. However, when Koch launched the space station on March 14, her stay was extended by NASA.
Just by expanding her six-month mission and reaching this record of 328 days 13 hours 58 minutes, Koch has surpassed her fellow NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s previous record of 288 days. Nevertheless NASA’s astronaut Scott Kelly still holds the all-time record with 340 days in space.
#CongratsChristina on completing your first journey into space!
— NASA (@NASA) February 6, 2020
🚀 Longest single spaceflight in history by a woman
👩🚀 Second-longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut
🛰️ Seventh on the list of American space travelers for total time in space
More: https://t.co/5PZlABW2Rq pic.twitter.com/zSpiikSUuT
Koch’s mission included 5,248 orbits of the Earth, while she was on board. She also consumed quite a bit of time to the station exterior, concluding six spacewalks, as she set the record of the first-ever spacewalk involving all women along with co-worker astronaut Jessica Meir and two more all-women spacewalks after that.
Born in Michigan, and raised in North Carolina, Christina Hammock Koch is an American engineer and NASA astronaut. She has contributed to a better understanding of what long-term spaceflight can do to the human body as a part of collecting more data on the long-duration spaceflight after-effects.
“I am so overwhelmed and happy right now,” says Koch, who disembarked on February 6th, 2020.
She also committed much of her time to miscellaneous experiments and investigations. Her desire is to inspire the next generation of explorers by her dedication towards work.
