NASA Astronaut Christina Koch Breaks Longest Female Stay Record
Christina Koch became the first woman astronaut to spend close to 11 months aboard the International Space Station. She was there in space with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency.
NASA’s astronaut Christina Koch
Koch was seated and smiling while touching down at 0912 GMT. She dropped on the Kazakh steppe after spending 328 days in space. The world saw her as she was extracted from the Soyuz descent module in the video footage of Roscosmos space agency.
The 41-year old Michigan-born engineer was blasted off on March 14 last year. She returned safely to earth on February 7, 2020. The US President Donald Trump congratulated Koch on Twitter.
Trump hailed Koch
Donald Trump congratulated Koch on breaking the female record of longest stay in the space. He also said that she was inspiring the young women and making the US proud.
Koch broke record
The earlier record of 289 days was made by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson in 2016-17. But Koch broke that record on December 28. Today, she is only female astronaut to stay in space for more than 300 days. She also made history of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir in October.