Context- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Christina Koch landed on the Earth on 6^th february, 2020 after a record stay of 328 days on the International Space Station.

Single Spaceflight

• The previous longest single spaceflight by any woman was 289 days by Peggy Whitson, also an American, who set that record in 2017.
• Valery Polyakov of Russia holds the combine (i.e. for both men and women) record for the longest single spaceflight in history (438 days).

Cumulative Record

• Gennady Padalka at 879 days is the world record holder in terms of cumulative time in space across one or more spaceflights.
• Whitson at 665 days holds the world record for women.

International space station

• The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit.
• Its first component launched into orbit in 1998, and the ISS is now the largest human-made body in low Earth orbit.
• Five different space agencies representing 15 countries built the $100-billion International Space Station and continue to operate it today. NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities (Roscosmos), the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are the primary space agency partners on the project.