At 1:39 p.m. EDT right this moment, Expedition 69’s Frank Rubio will formally change into holder of the empirical document for the best period of time ever spent in house by a U.S. astronaut throughout a single mission. He’ll cross the 355 days, three hours and 45 minutes established by fellow NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei in March 2022, however is not going to cease there: for when Rubio returns to Earth later this month, he’ll change into the primary American to finish a whole yr—a full orbit of the Solar—on a single, steady voyage.
And on the all-time checklist of expertise amongst worldwide spacefarers, Rubio and Russian cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin—each of whom are making their first flights—now sit in joint 53rd place, surpassed by 38 Russians, 9 People, two Italians and one apiece from Germany, France and Japan. Included within the checklist forward of Rubio and Petelin are their Expedition 69 crewmate Sergei Prokopyev, who flew a 196-day ISS increment in 2018 and whose working whole now stands at over 550 cumulative days, in addition to U.S. astronauting heavyweight Peggy Whitson and Russia’s Valeri Polyakov, holder of the longest single mission ever undertaken in human historical past.
Neither is a mixed yr in house essentially a rarity as of late, for 32 souls from Russia, the USA, France, Japan and Italy have spent greater than 12 months off the house planet throughout their careers. Ten extra have handed 18 cumulative months, while six Russians have accrued over two years in orbit throughout their cosmonauting careers.
When Russia’s Oleg Kononenko—already a four-flight veteran with over 736 days in house—launches subsequent week to start his deliberate year-long ISS keep, he’ll return a dozen months therefore as the primary human to cross cumulative 1,000 days off the planet. Relying on precisely how lengthy his subsequent increment lasts, Kononenko would possibly edge his profession whole simply previous the 1,095-day threshold to cross three years in house.
However for single missions to surpass a full yr is way much less commonplace. Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov spent 12 months aboard the Mir house station between December 1987 and December 1988, after which Polyakov logged his world-record-breaking 437-day keep between January 1994 and March 1995 and Sergei Avdeyev flew a pair of back-to-back increments, lasting 379 days, between August 1998 and August 1999.
In the course of the Worldwide House Station (ISS) period, three People—Scott Kelly, Christina Koch and Mark Vande Hei—along with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Pyotr Dubrov have approached a yr in house on single missions, however the timings of their respective returns to Earth have prompted them to fall shy of 12 months. Certainly, when Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio launched from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz MS-22 at 6:54 p.m. native time (9:54 a.m. EDT) on 21 September 2022, a typical six-month ISS increment lay forward.
Or so that they thought.
“A sundown begin,” intoned NASA’s Rob Navias as their rocket speared uphill, the flare of its heart core and 4 tapering side-boosters turning again the encroaching Kazakh night. Three hours and 12 minutes and two Earth orbits later, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio docked safely on the ISS, to be welcomed aboard the sprawling orbital advanced by Expedition 67 Commander Oleg Artemyev, his Russian crewmates Denis Matveev and Sergei Korsakov, U.S. astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob “Farmer” Hines and Jessica Watkins, along with Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti.
Every week later, Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov returned to Earth aboard their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft, wrapping up a six-month keep. And on 5 October Dragon Endurance launched from Pad 39A on the Kennedy House Heart (KSC) in Florida, bearing the multi-national Crew-5 quartet of NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina.
Lower than ten days after Crew-5’s arrival, Lindgren, Hines, Watkins and Cristoforetti boarded their Dragon Freedom spacecraft and returned to Earth to wrap up 170 days in orbit. At this stage—with Expedition 68 now underway—it was confidently anticipated that Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio would spend 182 days aloft, focusing on their very own undocking and homeward-bound journey in late March 2023.
Beneath Prokopyev’s command lay a number of busy months in help of round 250 analysis investigations, starting from modeling how the human mind adapts to microgravity to rising dwarf tomato vegetation and from listening to and ultrasound eye scans to 3D-printing of organ-like tissues. Six classes of Extravehicular Exercise (EVA)—from the U.S. Operational Phase (USOS) and the Russian Operational Phase (ROS)—came about between November 2022 and final February, together with three by Rubio, totaling 21 hours and 24 minutes, to proceed putting in Boeing-built ISS Roll-Out Photo voltaic Arrays (iROSAs).
However plans for an end-of-March return for Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio stalled on 14 December, when floor groups noticed “vital” leakage from the aft finish of Soyuz MS-22. A coolant loop leak was pinpointed, rising from the exterior radiator.
Temperatures and humidity ranges inside Soyuz MS-22 remained inside acceptable parameters and inspections utilizing the station’s 57.7-foot-long (17.6-meter) Canadarm2 robotic arm on 18 December revealed a small gap and discolouration on the radiator’s floor, suggestive of a Micrometeoroid Orbital Particles (MMOD) affect.
As 2023 started, it turned apparent that though the spacecraft may very well be used within the occasion of an emergency return of the crew, it was not viable for the “nominal” return of Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio. In mid-January, NASA and Roscosmos decided {that a} “alternative” ship, Soyuz MS-23, would launch uncrewed in February.
To facilitate an enhanced “lifeboat” functionality, Rubio’s seat liner was transferred from Soyuz MS-22 over to Dragon Endurance on 17-18 January, with an expectation that it could be put in—together with Prokopyev and Petelin’s seat liners—aboard Soyuz MS-23 following its arrival. The alternative crew car launched from Baikonur on 23 February and docked autonomously on the ISS two days later, carrying 946 kilos (429 kilograms) of payloads and provides.
Seat liners for Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio had been transferred over to Soyuz MS-23 over the subsequent few days and the ailing Soyuz MS-22 undocked in an uncrewed capability on 28 March, parachuting safely again to Earth on 28 March after 188 days. It was reported that temperatures possible reached 50 levels Celsius (122 levels Fahrenheit) on touchdown, considerably extra favorable than the worst-case eventualities contemplated by mission planners, though additional knowledge stays to be seen.
With the subsequent Russian crewed car, Soyuz MS-24, now scheduled to launch from Baikonur on 15 September—carrying the “authentic” Soyuz MS-23 crew of Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, along with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara—the keep time of Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio correspondingly lengthened to greater than a full yr. Their return has now been pegged for 27 September 2023, which can see the three males return after 371 days, the third-longest human flight ever carried out within the annals of house exploration.
