US astronaut returns to Earth after longest mission by a woman

NASA’s
Christina Koch returned to Earth safely on Thursday after breaking the
spaceflight record for female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard
the International Space Station.

Koch touched
down at 0912 GMT on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space, along with Luca
Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian
space agency.

Koch was
shown seated and smiling broadly after being extracted from the Soyuz descent
module in the Roscosmos space agency’s video footage from the landing site.

“I am so
overwhelmed and happy right now,” said Koch, who blasted off on March 14 last
year.

US President
Donald Trump congratulated Koch on Twitter.

Local
Kazakhs on horseback were among those to witness the capsule landing in the
snow-covered steppe as support crews gathered around the three astronauts, NASA
commentator Rob Navias said.

Koch, a
41-year-old Michigan-born engineer, on December 28 beat the previous record for
a single spaceflight by a woman of 289 days, set by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson
in 2016-17.

Koch called
three-time flyer Whitson, now 60, “a heroine of mine” and a “mentor” in the
space programme after she surpassed the record.

She spoke of
her desire to “inspire the next generation of explorers.”

Koch also
made history as one half of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with NASA
counterpart Jessica Meir,  her classmate
from NASA training in October.