Astronaut who accidentally spent longest time in space finally returns to Earth

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has returned to Earth after inadvertently breaking the record for the longest amount of time spent in space by an American.

Mr Rubio’s mission, alongside Russian astronauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, was only supposed to last six months.

But the trio ended up spending 371 days in space after the Soyuz capsule that was meant to bring them home was damaged.

Having been at the International Space Station since September 2022, they landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, in a capsule that was sent up to them as a replacement for the faulty one.

The 47-year-old American, who had never left Earth before this mission, told reporters it was “good to be home”, having admitted that he never would have agreed to a full year in space if asked at the beginning.

He ended up missing important family milestones, he said, including the oldest of his four children finishing her first year at the US Naval Academy and another heading off to join the US Military Academy.

“Hugging my wife and kids is going to be paramount, and I’ll probably focus on that for the first couple days,” Mr Rubio said ahead of his return to Houston.

The astronaut, who is also an army doctor and helicopter pilot, beat fellow American Mark Vande Hei’s record for longest time in space by two weeks.

He and his crewmates would have had to stay away from Earth for 437 to beat the record set by Russian Valeri Polyakov in the mid-1990s.

Their aircraft had a coolant leak in December, but their replacement only arrived at the space station around two weeks ago due to shortages.

“No one deserves to go home to their families more than you,” the space station’s commander, Andreas Mogensen, told them ahead of their return.

NASA plans to make the most of the mishap, though, as they stated the prolonged mission provides researchers with the opportunity to “observe the effects of long-duration spaceflight on humans”.

Mr Rubio may not want to spend too long being checked over in NASA’s labs – as he said he looks forward to the quiet of his backyard compared with the “constant drone and hum” of machinery while aboard the space station.

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NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, said: “Frank’s record-breaking time in space is not just a milestone; it’s a major contribution to our understanding of long-duration space missions.

“NASA is immensely grateful for Frank’s dedicated service to our nation and the invaluable scientific contributions he made on the International Space Station.

“He embodies the true pioneer spirit that will pave the way for future exploration to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”

The three astronauts travelled 157 million miles after launching from Kazakhstan last September, circling the world nearly 6,000 times.

During the mission, Rubio spent many hours on scientific activities aboard the space station, conducting a variety of tasks ranging from plant research to physical sciences studies.

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