The 43rd crew of the space station landed a month late, including an Italian astronaut who broke the record for women staying in space

The record, 199 days in space was not planned, but was achieved because Russia delayed the return of the crew due to delays in the launch of their replacements and the need to minimize the time when the station is manned by only three people

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforti set a new record when she completed the longest space mission of all the women who flew into space in history.
Yesterday (Thursday) Cristoforti and her two colleagues landed on the 43rd crew of the International Space Station in the Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of Kazakhstan after 199 days. They were supposed to return about a month ago, but the Russian launch agency postponed their landing following the failure to launch the Progress model supply spacecraft at the end of April. The Russian space agency has now approved crew exchanges and cargo launches to the International Space Station by the end of 2015.

Before Cristoforti, the woman who spent the longest time in space was Sunita Williams (49). She spent 195 consecutive days on the International Space Station in 2007.

Together with Cristoforti, the commander of the 43rd expedition, Terry Wirts from NASA, and the flight engineer Anton Shkalarov from the Russian Federal Space Agency also landed. Cristoforti was sent to the station on behalf of the European Space Agency.

In fact the three returned at the very last possible moment because the Soyuz spacecraft is certified to remain in orbit for up to 200 days. The purpose of the postponement was to minimize the time the space station remains with a skeleton crew of three people who are busy operating the station most of the time, resulting in less time devoted to research,

Flight engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency in a Star Trek series uniform as SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on April 17, 2015 full of supplies. Photo: NASA.
During their stay in orbit, the team members completed a number of critical spacewalks, technology demonstrations and hundreds of scientific experiments in many fields, including the effect of space on the human body (including calcium loss in bones during a long stay in zero gravity, research on a bacterium that causes food poisoning, and plant biology.