{"id":18824,"date":"2017-09-02T18:39:27","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T10:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-station-trio-returns-to-earth-nasas-peggy-whitson-racks-up-665-day-record\/"},"modified":"2017-09-02T18:39:27","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T10:39:27","slug":"space-station-trio-returns-to-earth-nasas-peggy-whitson-racks-up-665-day-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-station-trio-returns-to-earth-nasas-peggy-whitson-racks-up-665-day-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Space station trio returns to Earth: NASA\u2019s Peggy Whitson racks up 665-day record"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Peggy
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is helped out of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft just minutes after she and two fellow spacefliers landed in a remote area Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo \/ Bill Ingalls)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and two other spacefliers capped off a record-setting orbital mission today with their return from the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The trio, also including NASA\u2019s Jack Fischer and Russia\u2019s Fyodor Yurchikhin, landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, about four and a half hours after their undocking.<\/p>\n

Fischer and Yurchikhin had been on the station since April, but Whitson was in space much longer \u2013 since last November, 288 days ago. That brought her cumulative time in space to 665 days, setting the record for NASA astronauts.<\/p>\n

This mission also made Whitson the oldest woman to fly in space (age 57) and the most experienced woman spacewalker (with 10 orbital outings).<\/p>\n

\"Retro
A Russian Soyuz craft fires retro rockets to ease the shock of touchdown. (NASA Photo \/ Bill Ingalls)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although Whitson holds the U.S. record for total time in space, seven Russians have put in more time \u2013 including Yurchikhin, who is now No. 7 on the list with 673 days under his belt.<\/p>\n

In a pre-landing interview, Whitson said that she\u2019s \u201cnot overly comfortable\u201d with all the praise she\u2019s been getting about breaking space records \u2013 but was glad to play her part in the space effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly do think that it is critical that we are continuously breaking records, because that represents us moving forward in exploration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When she was lifted out of the Soyuz spaceship, she was greeted with a bouquet of flowers. \u201cWelcome back, Peggy,\u201d a member of the recovery team told her. After a round of medical tests and a stopover in Germany, Whitson will head back to her home in hurricane-hit Houston.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=f8ImPba7IX0<\/p>\n

Whitson was originally scheduled to return from the space station in June, but extended her stay to take advantage of a later opening in Russia\u2019s space schedule.<\/p>\n

Among the earthly amenities she\u2019s looking forward to are flush toilets. \u201cTrust me, you don\u2019t want to know the details,\u201d she joked.<\/p>\n

Three crew members remain on the space station: NASA\u2019s Randy Bresnik, who is now the station\u2019s commander, plus Italy\u2019s Paolo Nespoli and Russia\u2019s Sergey Ryazanskiy.<\/p>\n

The next three spacefliers \u2013 NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin \u2013 are due for launch to the space station from Russia\u2019s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is helped out of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft just minutes after she and two fellow spacefliers landed in a remote area Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo \/ Bill Ingalls) NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and two other spacefliers capped off a record-setting orbital mission today with their return from the International Space Station. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[717,190,1078,1302],"class_list":["post-18824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-international-space-station","tag-nasa","tag-peggy-whitson","tag-soyuz"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}