Russian cosmonauts Kononenko, Chub break record for longest flight onboard ISS
MOSCOW. Sept 20 (Interfax) - Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub have broken the record for the longest single spaceflight under the International Space Station (ISS) program.
At 4:06:51 p.m. Moscow time on Friday, Kononenko and Chub exceeded the previous achievement by Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio, who spent 370 days, 21 hours, 22 minutes, and 16 seconds onboard the ISS from September 2022 to September 2023.
Kononenko and Chub arrived at the ISS aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on September 15, 2023. They are to return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-25 on September 23, having spent 374 days in space, according to Roscosmos.
Interfax reported previously that on February 4, Kononenko set a new world record for the most time spent in space, outpacing Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who spent 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds in space during five missions. On June 5, 2024, Kononenko became the first person to log 1,000 days off Earth.
Kononenko, a Roscosmos cosmonaut crew commander, is performing his fifth space mission. After the end of the current flight, the duration of Kononenko's spaceflights should reach 1,110 days.
Oleg Kononenko was born in the city of Chardzhou (Carjew, now Turkmenabat) in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic on June 21, 1964. He graduated from the Zhukovsky Kharkov Aviation Institute with an engineering degree in Aerial Vehicle Engines in 1988. From 1996 to 1998, he underwent training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and was awarded the qualification of a test cosmonaut. Kononenko traveled into space for his first mission as a member of ISS Expedition 17 on April 8, 2008 and returned to Earth on October 24, 2008.
According to official information, Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the record for the longest-ever single trip to space, spending 437 days, 17 hours, 58 minutes and 17 seconds aboard the now defunct Mir space station between January 1994 and March 1995.
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