US astronaut returns to Earth after longest mission by woman

NASA's Christina Koch returned to Earth safely on Thursday after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard the International Space Station.

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

Koch was shown seated and smiling broadly after being extracted from the Soyuz descent module in the Roscosmos space agency's video footage from the landing site.

"I am so overwhelmed and happy right now," said Koch, who blasted off on March 14 last year. 

Parmitano pumped his fists in the air after being lifted into his chair while Skvortsov was shown eating an apple.

Local Kazakhs on horseback were among those to witness the capsule landing in the snow-covered steppe as support crews gathered around the three astronauts, NASA commentator Rob Navias said.

"I've never seen this," Navias exclaimed, reporting that the men stopped to chat with engineering personnel. 

Koch, a 41-year-old Michigan-born engineer, on December 28 last year beat the previous record for a single spaceflight by a woman of 289 days, set by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson in 2016-17.

Koch called three-time flyer Whitson, now 60, "a heroine of mine" and a "mentor" in the space program after she surpassed the record. 

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

Koch also made history as one half of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir -- her classmate from NASA training -- in October last year. 

The spacewalk was initially postponed because the space station did not have two suits of the right size for women, leading to allegations of sexism.

Ahead of the three-and-a-half-hour journey back to Earth, Koch told NBC on Tuesday that she would "miss microgravity". 

"It's really fun to be in a place where you can just bounce around between the ceiling and the floor whenever you want," she said, smiling as she twisted her body around the ISS.

She will now head to NASA headquarters in Houston, via the Kazakh city of Karaganda and Cologne in Germany, where she will undergo medical testing. 

Koch's medical data will be especially valuable to NASA scientists as the agency draws up plans for a long-duration manned mission to Mars. 

'Make space for women'

Koch's return comes after an advert for a skincare brand ran during an intermission in the American football Super Bowl with a call to "make space for women". 

The advert featured NASA astronaut Nicole Stott and saw the company promise to donate up to $500,000 to the non-profit Women Who Code, which works with young women seeking careers in tech and scientific fields. 

The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova whose spaceflight in 1963 is still the only solo mission carried out by a woman.

Russia has sent only one woman to the ISS since expeditions began in 2000 -- Yelena Serova whose mission launched in 2014.

Both Tereshkova and Serova are now lawmakers in the Russian parliament, where they represent the ruling United Russia party. 

Unlike Koch, whose ISS stay was extended, Parmitano and Skvortsov were rounding off regular half-year missions.

Parmitano handed over command of the ISS to Roscosmos's Oleg Skripochka on Tuesday. 

The 43-year-old Italian posted regular shots of the Earth while aboard, highlighting the plight of the Amazon rainforest and describing the Alps as "like a spinal column, never bending to time". 

Four male cosmonauts have spent a year or longer in space as part of a single mission with Russian Valery Polyakov's 437 days the overall record. 

Scott Kelly holds the record for a NASA astronaut, posting 340 days at the ISS before he returned home in 2016.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Space probe finds vast void between Saturn's rings

WASHINGTON - The unmanned Cassini spacecraft, after completing two passes in the vast, unexplored area between Saturn's rings has discovered not much else there, researchers at NASA said.

Scientists have been surprised to find that not all that much -- not even space dust -- lies between Saturn's iconic rings.

"The region between the rings and Saturn is 'the big empty,' apparently," said Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, after the probe's first pass.

The rings themselves are made of fast-moving particles of ice and space debris.

The 22-foot-tall (6.7 meter) Cassini spacecraft launched in 1997 and began orbiting Saturn in 2004.

Cassini made a first pass to explore what lies between the rings in late April and a second one on May 2, at a speed of about 77,000 miles per hour relative to the planet.

The gap between the rings and the top of Saturn's atmosphere is about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers).

Cassini is expected to make a total of 22 dives between the rings and the planet before making a death plunge into the gas giant in September.

Cassini is a 20-year-old joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Russian spaceship delivers three astronauts to space station

MIAMI - Russia's Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, carrying a European, a Russian and an American astronaut for a six-month mission at the orbiting outpost.

"Capture confirmed," said a NASA commentator as the spacecraft docked at the ISS at 4:58 pm (2158 GMT), US space agency live television images showed.

The trio -- Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and American astronaut Peggy Whitson -- launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Pesquet, 38, a rookie astronaut and amateur saxophone player, is the first French national to be sent to the ISS by the European Space Agency since 2008.

Novitskiy, 45, a Russian Air Force pilot and decade-long veteran of the space agency Roscosmos, is making his second trip to the ISS.

Whitson, 56, is an experienced veteran and biochemistry expert who will break records with this space mission, including the title of the most days in space by a US astronaut.

She is scheduled to surpass NASA astronaut Jeff Williams's 534 days on April 24.

In February, Whitson will become the first woman to command the space station twice.

She previously commanded the station in 2007, when she became the first woman to hold this post, NASA said.

Their arrival means the staff at the orbiting outpost goes back up to six.

Already staffing the ISS are Russians Andrei Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov, and American Shane Kimbrough.

But even after a two-day journey in cramped quarters, the three new arrivals were not allowed to exit the spacecraft right away.

More than two and a half hours of checks were needed to make sure the seal was airtight between the station and Soyuz.

When the hatches finally opened at 7:40 pm (0040 GMT Sunday) the crew was all smiles as they floated into the space station -- first Novitskiy, then Pesquet and finally Whitson -- and exchanged hugs with their crewmates.

"Watching you, we could not be more proud," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden, speaking to the crew from Earth.

Russia's Soyuz capsules offer the only way for global astronauts to reach the space station since the American space shuttle program was retired in 2011.

Astronauts pay more than $71 million per seat for a ride on the Soyuz, which carries three people at a time.

Private industries including SpaceX and Boeing are designing spacecraft to once again ferry astronauts from US soil. Their first flights are not expected until late next year or in 2018.

Humans have lived continuously at the space station for more than 15 years.

More than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the microgravity laboratory that circles Earth at a distance of about 250 miles (400 kilometers), NASA said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com