American astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth Thursday morning after spending almost a year on the International Space Station (ISS). A record for a woman.
Christina Koch and her colleagues, Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and the Russian cosmonaut Alexandre Skvortsov, landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, after a flight of about three and a half hours.
Nasa astronaut Christina Koch, 41, stayed on the ISS 328 days, breaking the previous record set by Peggy Whitson, the 289th space veteran. This American engineer has already put her name in history by participating in the first 100% female spacewalk, which she carried out in October 2019 with Jessica Meir, a marine biologist.
. @ Astro_Christina is back on Earth after 328 days living in space. https://t.co/yuOTrYN8CV pic.twitter.com/SU1Vi1W4XU
- Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) February 6, 2020Christina Koch, interviewed by the press on Tuesday, two days before returning to Earth, told the NBC that she was going to miss "microgravity" the most. "It's really funny to be in a place where you can jump from floor to ceiling when you want," she said, smiling.
"Space for women"
Christina Koch returns to Earth shortly after the presentation, in the Super Bowl finale, of a new space-accented advertisement from the cosmetics brand Olay. This ad, starring Nasa astronaut Nicole Stott, calls for "making space for women" and aims to help the company raise $ 500,000 for the Women Who Code organization, which encourages young people women studying technology and science.
I'm going to miss this bunch. Thank you, space family. # Expedition61 pic.twitter.com/pteShj231d
- Christina H Koch (@Astro_Christina) February 5, 2020The first woman to fly into space was the Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Terechkova. Its flight in 1963 remains to this day the only space mission carried out by a woman solo. Since the launches to the ISS began, Russia has only sent men into space, with the exception of Elena Serova in 2014.
What about men?
Unlike Christina Koch, whose stay on board the ISS has been extended beyond the initial deadlines, Luca Parmitano and Alexandre Skvortsov complete standard missions of six months.
On Tuesday, Mr. Parmitano placed orders for the ISS with the cosmonaut of the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos) Oleg Skripotchka. The 43-year-old Italian astronaut has regularly published photos of the Earth taken from the ISS, showing in particular the forest fires in Australia or the Alps, which he describes as "a spine that never inclines before time ".
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Only four Russian cosmonauts spent a year or more in space on a single mission, the all-time record of 437 days being held by Valery Poliakov. Among the NASA astronauts, the record goes to Scott Kelly, who spent 340 days in a row on the ISS before returning to Earth in 2016.
