NASA astronaut Christina Koch has completed the longest-ever single spaceflight by a woman.
The Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Koch parachuted down to the grasslands of Kazakhstan at around 09:12 GMT.
She spent 328 days on the International Space Station (ISS), surpassing the previous record held by fellow American Peggy Whitson.
Her stay is just 12 days short of the all-time US record set by Scott Kelly, who was on the ISS from 2015-2016.
During her mission, Koch completed six spacewalks — including another two with Meir — and spent 42 hours and 15 minutes outside of the station.
Koch also devoted much of her time to a variety of experiments and investigations. The space station acts as an orbiting laboratory that can be used to test how different aspects of everyday human life on Earth react to the lack of gravity.
On the station, astronauts experience a plethora of science activities. Sometimes, they’re the test subject, contributing to studies about human health in space. Other times, they’re working with scientists on Earth to test their experiments.
Picture Credit : Google