After staying on board the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) for greater than a yr, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has lastly returned residence with a brand new report of the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut.
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Alongside along with his crew mates, Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, Rubio made a parachute-assisted touchdown in Kazakhstan on Wednesday at 7:17 a.m. ET. The trio departed on board the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, which undocked from the ISS at 3:54 a.m. ET, after spending 317 days in low Earth orbit.
“Frank’s record-breaking time in house is not only a milestone; it’s a serious contribution to our understanding of long-duration house missions,” NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson mentioned in a press release. “Our astronauts make extraordinary sacrifices away from their houses and family members to additional discovery.”
Rubio launched to the ISS on September 21, 2022 on board a Russian Soyuz crew capsule. In December 2022, the spacecraft that transported Rubio started leaking coolant into low Earth orbit whereas connected to the ISS. Consequently, the spacecraft was deemed unfit to fly Rubio and his two crew mates again to Earth and their mission was prolonged by one other six months.
Rubio grew to become the primary U.S. astronaut, and one in all solely six individuals, to spend a yr in house. On September 11, Rubio beat the earlier report of 355 days set by Mark Vande Hei in 2022.
Every week earlier than his scheduled return to Earth, Rubio admitted that he would have turned down the mission had he identified he’d find yourself staying that lengthy in low Earth orbit. “If that they had requested me up entrance earlier than coaching, since you do practice for a yr or two years in your mission, I in all probability would have declined,” Rubio advised reporters throughout a reside broadcast from the ISS on September 19.
Throughout his 371 days on board the house station, Rubio accomplished round 5,936 orbits of Earth and traveled 157,412,306 statute miles or the equal of roughly 328 spherical journeys to the Moon and again, in line with NASA.
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