NASA astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth on Thursday morning after 328 days in space, a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman and another in a string of recent achievements by female astronauts.

Koch touched down at 0912 GMT on the Kazakh steppe  along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian Space Agency.

Koch broke a record set in 2017 by Peggy Whitson, who spent 288 days in space on a single mission, and came within two weeks of the record for a single spaceflight by an American, 340 days, set by Scott Kelly in 2016. Whitson still holds the record for the total days in space by any NASA astronaut, at 665 days.

Koch, a scientist from North Carolina, joined the astronaut corps in 2013, the first class in NASA’s history that had as many women as men.

The achievement comes as NASA this year is celebrating 20 years of continuous human presence on the space station, some 240 miles above Earth. During her stay, Koch participated in a number of scientific experiments, including on mustard greens, combustion, bio-printing and kidney diseases.