Feb 05, 2020: NASA astronaut Christina Koch now holds the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman. Record-breaking NASA astronaut Christina Koch is set to return to Earth tomorrow on February 6, 2020, after spending 328 days in space-- the longest single spaceflight by any woman. In a press release, NASA said that Koch will return to Earth alongside European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov.
Koch has been living and working aboard the International Space Station to help scientists gather data for future missions to the Moon and Mars. She is also only the second US astronaut to spend such a long time on the International Space Station (ISS) in a single spaceflight.
Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly holds the longest single spaceflight for US astronauts at 340 days, set during his one-year mission in 2015-16. In terms of overall time spent in space, she is now seventh on the list of US astronauts.
✨ “We have a responsibility to the people that we represent up here, to carry people’s dreams into space with us.” -@Astro_Christina ✨
— ISS Research (@ISS_Research) February 3, 2020
Thank you Christina Koch for fulfilling the dreams of scientists, by being their eyes and hands aboard the @Space_Station. pic.twitter.com/8aKIiv4s5P