Record-breaking female astronaut Christina Koch returns to Earth

• Koch touched down in the Kazakh steppes with colleagues Luca Parmitano and Alexander Skvortsov.
• Koch had already made history by that point after she became half of the first-ever all-female spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir in October.

KAZAKHSTAN: U.S. astronaut Christina Koch has returned to Earth on Thursday after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts by spending almost a year aboard the International Space Station.

Koch touched down in the Kazakh steppes with colleagues Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency at 0912 GMT after 328 days in space.

The 41-year-old Michigan-born engineer by training surpassed the previous record set for a single spaceflight by a woman — 289 days, held by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson — on Dec. 28, 2019.

VIDEO: Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, American astronaut Christina Koch and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano land in the Kazakh steppes as they return to Earth from the International Space Station pic.twitter.com/ZxvzfLWfCu

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 6, 2020

Koch had already made history by that point after she became half of the first-ever all-female spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir in October.

Koch told NBC on Tuesday that she would “miss microgravity” as she answered questions from journalists ahead of her 3½-hour journey back to Earth.

Koch called three-time flyer Whitson “a heroine of mine” and a “mentor” in the space program after she surpassed the 59-year-old’s record.

She also spoke of her desire to “inspire the next generation of explorers.”

Koch’s return comes after an ad produced by the skin-care brand Olay ran during an intermission in the American football Super Bowl with a call to “make space for women.”