Christina Koch Lands After Record-Breaking 328 Days In Space, Making All Of Humanity Proud
She has landed safely on Earth after a record breaking longest single spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 days on the International Space Station, during which she was also part of the first all-female spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir.
A Soyuz spacecraft capsule carrying Christina Koch, along with European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, safely soft-landed near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, earlier on Thursday.
Christina Koch earned the new world record for the longest single spaceflight in zero gravity by a woman earlier on December 28th, where she eclipsed the record held by fellow NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson who spent 288 days in space from 2016-2017.
Memorable space trip
During her record-breaking mission on the space station, Christina Koch completed as many as six spacewalks, spending a total of 42 hours and 15 minutes outside of the station.
Apart from conducting several scientific lab experiments in microgravity, Christina Koch's biggest accomplishment undoubtedly has to be subjecting her own body to almost a year in zero gravity space. NASA will no doubt learn a lot from Koch's physiology and the effects of space on a female body -- something that will power the knowledge of future human spaceflights.
Christina Koch's 328 days in space just falls short of fellow NASA astronaut Scott Kelly's all-time record of 340 days in space.
Just hours before preparing for her ride back to Earth, NASA astronaut Christina Koch posted a glorious picture of the earth on her Twitter profile, saying she will definitely miss seeing the "exquisite beauty of both the planet Earth and this marvel that its amazing people created," referring to the International Space Station which hovers 400 km above the earth.