Oleg Kononenko ( center ) , prior to his latest launch to the International Space Station in September 2023 . Alongside him are NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonaut Nikolai Chub . Roscosmos / NASA
A Russian cosmonaut has just plant a raw phonograph recording for the longest meter spend in space .
Set over five mission , Oleg Kononenko on Sunday has now spend more than 878 day , or nearly two - and - a - one-half years , in compass .
Oleg Kononenko (center), prior to his latest launch to the International Space Station in September 2023. Alongside him are NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonaut Nikolai Chub.Roscosmos/NASA
Kononenko , 59 , snatch the platter from compatriot Gennady Padalka , who retired in 2017 follow five trips to outer space .
Currently aboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) about 250 mile above Earth , Kononenko , whose latest mission started in September last year , is set to take back to Earth in seven calendar month , with his record go under to extend to 1,110 days in range .
“ I aviate into space to do what I love , not to set records , ” the cosmonaut , who first flew to blank space in 2008,toldRussian word agency Tass . “ I ’ve daydream of and aspired to become a spaceman since I was a baby . ”
Kononenko add : “ That interest — the opportunity to fly into space , to live and knead in orbit — motivates me to go on fly . I am proud of all my accomplishment , but I am more majestic that the record for the entire duration of human stop in space is still hold by a Russian astronaut . ”
He enjoin that video telephone call and messaging enable him to keep in sense of touch with family and friends back on terra firma , adding that whenever he returns to Earth , it always pass to him exactly what he ’s been miss most .
“ It is only upon returning home that the realization come that for one C of days in my absence seizure , the children have been acquire up without father , ” Kononenko say . “ No one will return this time to me . ”
The most days accumulated in place by a NASA astronaut is currently 678 sidereal day by retire American spaceman Peggy Whitson across four charge .
Meanwhile , the book for the tenacious individual stoppage is held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov , who lived aboard the Mir infinite station for 437 days and 18 hours in the mid-1990s . American astronaut Frank Rubio recently arrange a young single - stoppage phonograph record for NASA astronautswhen he returned home in Septemberafter logging 371 days in field .