NASA announced the name of the astronaut who will travel to and from ISS (International Space Station) by the end of the year. The new schedule by NASA will break the previous records of the astronauts who spent the highest time in space. NASA has announced the name of Christina Koch who will travel to the area and will hold the title of the longest spaceflight. Christina Koch will suppose to break the record of Peggy Whitson, the former astronaut of NASA. Scott Kelly has made the record of the longest spaceflight by spending 340 days straight in orbit. That is the record of NASA astronaut.
Koch has recently launched at ISS along with Russian cosmonaut Alexy Ovchinin and Nick Hague, an astronaut of NASA on 14th of March. Now Christina Koch is slated to stay on the station till February of 2020. According to NASA, Koch will remain in orbit for 328 days that means almost a year. She will beat the record of 288 days stay of Whitson in space. When Kelly has stayed in the area for nearly a year, his health analysis was done by NASA to see how the human body is affected by visiting in space. Then after returning from the area, Kelly’s health condition is compared to his twin brother who has stayed on earth for that year. The analysis has found staying in the area has affected cognition and damaged DNA. With the currently scheduled stay of Christina Koch, NASA will research more about the effects of staying at the space on the human body.
NASA also detailed about the crew members who will stay at space along with Koch. NASA has scheduled three crew members will depart on this June. Then a new set of crew members are expected to launch in July at ISS, later another group of three members will leave in September. In total, nine crew members are scheduled to stay in space, before early October when three people disappear. For the first time Jessica Meir, the flyer will be there with Koch for the extended mission. The two female Meir and Koch will be on the crew at the same time. NASA is planning for an all-female space walk soon. Previously, McClain was included in the team but due to some logistic and spacesuit sizing issue, have to be swapped out. So that Meir and Koch are assigned for the spacewalk together.
NASA is planning to launch the first set of the crew in July during a quick test flight. SpaceX and Boeing are the commercial partners of NASA. They are most probably going to fly the teams of NASA by their spacecraft. These are the details provided by NASA on Wednesday, but there is much more work to do on the mission. The spacecraft created by the commercial partners of NASA is not guaranteed because the spaceflights are technically faulty somehow. While the companies are fixing the issue with their spaceflights, NASA will rely on the Russian spacecraft.