Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko has set a new record for the total duration in space, state agency Roscosmos reported on Sunday.
He surpasses his countryman Gennady Padalka, who spent more than 878 days in orbit.
Now, Kononenko is on his fifth flight to the International Space Station. His first flight was in 2008. All other active cosmonauts of the Russian detachment have flown no more than three times.
Kononenko flew to the International Space Station on September 15, 2023, on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft along with another Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Chub and American Loral O'Hara. She will return to Earth in the spring of 2024 along with Russian Oleg Novitsky and Belarusian Marina Vasilevskaya.
The expedition of Kononenko and Chub will last another six months, after which they will return on the Soyuz MS-25 on September 23. During this time, Kononenko will become the first cosmonaut to spend more than a thousand days in orbit. As noted by Roscosmos, this milestone will be passed at 00.00.10 Moscow time on June 5. Upon completion of the mission, his flying time will reach 1110 days.
The flight will be the fourth during the existence of the ISS. In 2015-2016, an experimental mission by cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko and astronaut Scott Kelly took place lasting 340 days. Russian cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov, together with American Mark Vande Hei, stayed at the station for 355 days in 2021-2022.
The expedition, which is still a record for the ISS, lasted 371 days. Russians Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, together with the American Frank Rubio, who arrived in September 2022, were forced to stay for six months due to depressurization of the cooling circuit in their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft and wait for the next Soyuz MS-23.