Record for woman's longest space mission

NASA astronaut Christina Koch has become the woman who's spent the longest time in outer space with 289 consecutive days.

Koch, 40, arrived at the International Space Station last March, and on Saturday her spaceflight surpassed the record set by her US compatriot Peggy Whitson, who was 288 straight days in orbit.

"It's a wonderful thing for science. We see another aspect of how the human body is affected by microgravity for the long term, and that's really important for our future spaceflight plan going forward to the moon and to Mars," she said in an interview with CNN from the International Space Station.

Her return to Earth is planned for February 2020, which will leave her slightly behind the long-haul stint by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly with 340 days in space.

The world record for the time an astronaut has remained in space was established in 1995 by Russia's Valeri Polyakov with 438 days.

In October of this year Koch and colleague Jessica Meir made the first space walk by an all-woman team, and kept it up for more than 7 hours.