After spending just over a year in space, a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts have finally returned to Earth. The extended stay resulted in American Frank Rubio setting a record for the longest US spaceflight. The trio landed in a remote area of Kazakhstan, descending in a Soyuz capsule that was sent up as a replacement after their original ride was damaged by space debris and lost its coolant while docked to the International Space Station. What was supposed to be a 180-day mission turned into a 371-day stay. Rubio spent more than two weeks longer in space than the previous record holder, Mark Vande Hei. In the mid-1990s, Russia set the world record of 437 days.
The Soyuz capsule that brought Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin back was a replacement launched in February. Russian engineers suspect that a piece of space debris punctured the radiator of their original capsule in late 2019, halfway through what was supposed to be a six-month mission. Engineers were concerned that without cooling, the capsule’s electronics and any occupants could overheat to dangerous levels, so the decision was made to bring the capsule back empty. Another Soyuz was not available to launch a fresh crew until this month. Their replacements finally arrived nearly two weeks ago. “No one deserves to go home to their families more than you,” said the space station’s new commander, Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen, earlier this week.
Prokopyev informed ground controllers throughout the descent that all three astronauts were feeling good. They experienced more than four times the force of gravity as their capsule streaked through the atmosphere and made a touchdown in the barren Kazakh steppes. Recovery crews in helicopters were deployed to retrieve the astronauts. “Rubio’s record ride comes to an end,” said NASA commentator Rob Navias from Mission Control in Houston. At a news conference last week, Rubio, a 47-year-old Army doctor and helicopter pilot, stated that he would not have agreed to a full year in space if he had been asked at the beginning. He missed important family milestones, such as his oldest child completing her first year at the US Naval Academy and another child heading off to West Point.
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Rubio mentioned that the psychological aspect of spending such a long time in space was tougher than he had anticipated. “Hugging my wife and kids is going to be paramount, and I’ll probably focus on that for the first couple of days,” he said. Rubio may hold on to this record for a while, as NASA currently has no plans for more yearlong missions. This was the first spaceflight for both Rubio and Petelin, a 40-year-old engineer. Prokopyev, a 48-year-old engineer and pilot, has now completed two long station missions. Together, they traveled 157 million miles since launching from Kazakhstan last September and circled the world nearly 6,000 times.
(Read more astronaut stories.)
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