NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, who returned to Earth on Sept. 2 after spending months aboard the International Space Station, discussed their mission during a news conference on Sept. 11 at the agency’s Johnson Space Center.
Although Whitson and Fischer returned to Earth together, they arrived at the space station separately. Whitson launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 17 and spent more than nine months in space. She now holds the U.S. record for cumulative time in space, with 665 days in orbit during three long-duration missions. Fischer launched to the space station on April 20 and spent 136 days in orbit on his first space mission, during which he took part in two spacewalks that total just under seven hours.
