Record-breaking NASA astronaut comes back to Earth

Washington : A record-shattering NASA astronaut touched down to Earth on Sunday, finishing a 288-day mission that put her over the top as the American who has spent the most cumulative amount of time in space.

Peggy Whitson, 57, is also the oldest female astronaut in the history of space exploration, was the first female International Space Station commander, and holds the record for number of spacewalks (10) by a woman.

The biochemist completed a mission at the International Space Station that began in November 2016, covering 122.2 million miles (196.7 million kilometers) and 4,623 orbits of Earth.

She and crewmates Jack Fischer of NASA and Fyodor Yurchikhin of Russian space agency Roscosmos landed in Kazakhstan at 7:31 am local time Sunday (0121 GMT) in a Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft. 

Whitson has racked up 665 days in space in her career, more than any other American astronaut. She is eighth on the all-time space endurance list, NASA said.

Her colleague Jack "2Fish" Fischer, 43, went into space as a rookie but has won over space-watchers with his boundless enthusiasm during his four-and-a-half months aboard the ISS.

He likened the feeling of his spacewalk with Whitson in May -- the 200th ISS spacewalk -- to a "ginormous fondue pot, bubbling over with piping hot awesomesauce."

"Heading home soon… I hope I infected a few of you with my passion for space. Never stop learning and growing. I dare you to dream!" he tweeted Friday.

NASA footage showed Whitson brought out last from the capsule before being seated and handed flowers by a member of the crew at the landing site.