Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut from NASA landed in Kazakhstan on Monday (23) after a record mission aboard the International Space Station, according to the Russian Roscosmos agency.
The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft capsule carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, his companion Nikolai Chub and American astronaut Tracy Dyson landed at 4:59 p.m. local time (8:59 a.m. Brasilia time) on the steppes of the vast Central Asian country.
Cosmonauts Kononenko and Chub spent 347 days in space, the longest mission aboard the International Space Station, and Dyson launched in late March 2024.
The absolute record for the longest stay in space still belongs to Russian Valery Polyakov, who spent 438 days aboard the former Mir space station between 1994 and 1995.
Then, on his fifth flight into space, 60-year-old Oleg Kononenko spent 1,111 days in orbit, also a record.
In late March, as part of sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Western countries ended their cooperation with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, but the Soyuz spacecraft remains one of the few means of transporting crew to the International Space Station.
The Russian space sector has suffered for years from underfunding, corruption scandals and numerous failures, such as the loss of the Luna-25 lunar probe in August 2023.
But the problems have not undermined Russia’s ambitions, which intends to build its own orbital station to replace the aging International Space Station and resume missions to the moon.
“Hardcore beer fanatic. Falls down a lot. Professional coffee fan. Music ninja.”
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