Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, 59, today set a new record for the time he has spent in orbit around the Earth, the Roscosmos space corporation announced.
According to the corporation, Kononenko surpassed the previous record of almost 879 days accumulated over 17 years, which his compatriot Guennadi Padalka had held since 2016.
Kononenko is completing his fifth mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and is on track to become the first cosmonaut to spend more than 1,000 days in space on 4 June.
By the date of his return to Earth on 23 September 2024, Kononenko will have accumulated 1,110 days in orbital missions.
The longest continuous stay in the history of the ISS, 371 days, was achieved by Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitri Petelin, as well as US astronaut Francisco Rubio.
The three arrived at the station on 21 September 2022. They stayed six months longer than planned after a micrometeorite caused the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft’s cooling system to depressurise and forced them to wait for the next one to return.
The record for the longest continuous stay on a single space mission, almost 438 days, is held by Russia’s Valeri Polyakov, who set the record aboard the Mir station in 1995.
