PEGGY BRINGS US RECORD HOME
A RECORD-shattering NASA astronaut touched down to Earth yesterday, finishing a 288-day mission that made her the American who has spent the most cumulative amount of time in space.
Peggy Whitson, 57, is also the oldest female astronaut in the history of space exploration, was the first female International Space Station commander, and holds the record for number of spacewalks (10) by a woman.
The biochemist completed a mission at the International Space Station that began in November 2016, covering 96.7 million kilometers and 4623 orbits of Earth. She and crewmates Jack Fischer of NASA and Fyodor Yurchikhin of Russian space agency Roscosmos landed in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft.
Ms Whitson has racked up 665 days in space in her career, more than any other American astronaut.