Eastern NC Native Christina Koch Returns to Earth After Longest Space Flight By A Woman
Girls everywhere must be feeling inspired. Astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth on Thursday (2/6) after breaking the record for the longest space flight by a woman. She spent 328…
ZHEZKAZGAN, KAZAKHSTAN – FEBRUARY 6: In this handout image supplied by NASA, NASA astronaut Christina Koch is helped out of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft just minutes after she, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, on February 6, 2020 in Kazakhstan. Koch returned to Earth after logging 328 days in space — the longest spaceflight in history by a woman — as a member of Expeditions 59-60-61 on the International Space Station. Skvortsov and Parmitano returned after 201 days in space where they served as Expedition 60-61 crew members onboard the station. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty ImagesGirls everywhere must be feeling inspired. Astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth on Thursday (2/6) after breaking the record for the longest space flight by a woman. She spent 328 days on the International Space Station.
While she was up there, Christina Koch also conducted the first all-female spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir. That was one of six spacewalks Koch completed. In all, she spent over 42 hours outside of the ISS. Christina Koch was part of a team researching how the human body is affected by a lack of gravity, something she had to get used to when her mission began in March 2019. Koch told CNN that she wonders how her body will now respond back on Earth.
Raised in Jacksonville, NC, Christina Koch dreamed of becoming an astronaut from a young age. She graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham in 1997. Koch went on to earn two Bachelor of Science degrees, in Electrical Engineering and Physics (2001), and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (2002) from NC State University. She currently lives in Texas with her husband.
