Almost a year after their arrival at the International Space Station (ISS), the flight of Frank Rubio, Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin arrived. The Russian Soiuz MS-24 spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station last Friday and will return to Earth on September 27 – 371 days after this trio of astronauts arrived at the space station, more than a year.
Frank Rubio will return from space as the first North American astronaut to spend more than a year in space, beating the record held by North American Mark Vande Heij (355 days between 2021 and 2022). For the Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev And Dmitry Bethlin, it’s a personal record, but not for your country. The Russian and world record belongs to Valery Polyakov and is nearly three decades old: the cosmonaut spent 438 consecutive days on the Russian Mir space station, between January 1994 and March 1995.
The long presence of American Frank Rubio on the International Space Station was not expected. After departure on September 21 last year, a small hole in the Soiuz MS-22 spacecraft (in which Rubio, Prokopyev and Petilin traveled) left that spacecraft’s external cooling circuit inoperable — and without cooling, the astronauts’ safety is at risk. . Danger. Last February, an alternative spacecraft – Soyuz MS-23 – was sent to return these three astronauts, but their stay was extended again until the end of this month, although the reasons for the delayed return to Earth are unknown. .
This return is scheduled to take place on September 27 next week aboard the Soiuz MS-24 vehicle, which has now arrived at the space station. The Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft took with it two other Russian astronauts and an American, after leaving the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The arrival of Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub (both from Russia’s Roscosmos) and Loral O’Hara (from NASA in North America) increased the number of guests on the space station to ten astronauts – which is happening even though it is not a record. During these crew “change” periods.
The record number of crew members on the International Space Station is slightly higher: 11 people. This huge number of people, in a laboratory built to accommodate six or seven astronauts, is not very old. In August, during a crew change, there were 11 people sharing the ISS for about a week, due to the travel schedule to and from Earth that forced this overlap. In 2021, for the first time, 11 astronauts were on the International Space Station simultaneously for four days, prompting some of these astronauts to “camp out” in improvised areas on the space station to sleep, according to what the International Space Agency reported. location Space.com website -There are only seven space chambers on the International Space Station.
Kononenko would be a record name
The recent arrival of Chub, Kononenko and O’Hara are common roster changes, but in Oleg Kononenko’s case he will set a new record. While O’Hara and Chubb take their first steps aboard the International Space Station, Kononenko already has extensive experience on the station, which is about 400 kilometers from Earth. The goal is “simple”: to break the record set by Gennady Padalka, who spent 878 days in space (the total of all his missions).
Bill Ingels/NASA
Oleg Kononenko, born in Charchu (in present-day Turkmenistan, but at that time a Soviet territory), will spend a year in space, which, at 59 years old, will allow him to surpass the record set by his compatriot Gennady Padalka. Until this flight, Oleg Kononico had already spent a total of 736 days on the International Space Station, after four missions carried out since 2008.
This will be Oleg Kononico’s fifth mission, in which he will surpass the current record set by Gennady Padalka for accumulated time in space, and he will also become the first person to exceed, adding all the missions, 1,000 days in space – he will be among the 1,036 1,101 days in space. Space when this mission is finished.
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