Koch Completing Milestone Mission Aboard Space Station
By Bob Granath
On Jan. 8, 2020, NASA astronaut Christina Koch became the first woman from any nation to pass the milestone of 300 days on a single spaceflight. Koch eclipsed the previous record of time in space for a woman, 289 days, on Dec. 28, 2019. NASA’s Peggy Whitson set the mark between Nov. 17, 2016 and Sept. 3, 2017. Koch is scheduled to remain aboard the International Space Station (ISS) until Feb. 6, 2020, 328 days after her liftoff.
Two days prior to breaking the record, Koch spoke of her admiration for Whitson, who more than 665 days in Earth orbit over three missions.
“Peggy is a heroine of mine and has also been kind enough to mentor me through the years,” Koch said. “It is a reminder to give back and to mentor when I get back. Having the opportunity to be up here for so long is truly an honor.”
Koch was launched to the space station on March 14, 2019, lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz MS 12 spacecraft. She has been a flight engineer during ISS Expeditions 59, 60 and 61.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly holds the record for an American spaceflight at 340 days, set between March 27, 2015 and March 2, 2016. The longest space mission by anyone occurred between Jan. 8, 1994 to March 22, 1995, by Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov. A medical doctor, he spent 438 days in space aboard Russia’s space station Mir.
(Read more about the one-year mission of Scott Kelly.)
Koch and astronaut Jessica Meir marked another milestone on Oct. 18, 2019, performing the first all-woman spacewalk. Together, they replaced a faulty battery charge/discharge unit outside the orbiting laboratory.
Now in its 20th year of continuous human presence, the International Space Station is serving as a platform for long-duration research in microgravity and for learning to live and work in space. Experience gained on the orbiting laboratory is supporting NASA’s Artemis Program to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon and on to Mars.
“It is a wonderful thing for science,” Koch said of her work aboard the space station. “We see another aspect of how the human body is affected by microgravity for the long term. That is really important for our future spaceflight plans, going forward to the Moon and Mars.”
Both Koch and Meir were part of NASA’s group of eight astronauts selected in 2013.
Born Jan. 29, 1979, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Koch was raised in Jacksonville, North Carolina.She earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and physics, as well as a masters in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University.
Prior to selection as an astronaut, Koch performed advanced studies working in the space science instrument development and remote scientific engineering fields in the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The year before being selected as an astronaut, Koch worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a field engineer at NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division Baseline Observatory in Barrow, Alaska, and then served as station chief for the observatory in American Samoa.
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