Record-breaking astronaut lands
A RECORD-SHATTERING Nasa astronaut touched down to Earth yesterday, finishing a 288-day mission that put her over the top as the American who has spent the most cumulative amount of time in space.
Peggy Whitson, 57, is also the oldest woman astronaut in the history of space exploration, was the first woman 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, covering 196.7 million kilometres and 4 623 orbits of Earth.
She and crew mates Jack Fischer, of Nasa, and Fyodor Yurchikhin, of Russian space agency Roscosmos, landed in Kazakhstan at 7.31am yesterday in a Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft. Whitson has racked up 665 days in space in her career, more than any other American astronaut.
She was eighth on the all-time space endurance list, Nasa said.
Her colleague Jack “2Fish” Fischer, 43, went into space as a rookie but has won over space-watchers with his boundless enthusiasm during his 4½ months aboard the ISS.
He likened the feeling of his spacewalk with Whitson in May – the 200th ISS spacewalk – to a “ginormous fondue pot, bubbling over with piping hot awesomesauce”.
“Heading home soon. I hope I infected a few of you with my passion for space. Never stop learning and growing. I dare you to dream!” he tweeted on Friday.
Nasa footage showed Whitson being brought out last from the capsule before being seated and handed flowers by a member of the crew at the landing site. On this most recent mission, Whitson conducted experiments with human stem cells, blood samples and grew several crops of Chinese cabbage, according to posts on her Facebook page.
“The best part was that after we harvested for the science, we got to eat the rest!” she said of her greens.
In an interview before departing the space station, Whitson said she was looking forward to flush toilets (“Trust me, you don’t want to know the details”) and pizza.
She noted that she is not totally comfortable with the attention she receives for her various records and her status as a role model.
The astronauts’ return comes as the Texas city of Houston, home to Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre, has been struggling to get back to normality after a week of deadly flooding triggered by Hurricane Harvey.