NASA LEADERSHIP CALLS RECORD-BREAKING ASTRONAUT RUBIO ON ISS, Sept 13, 2023, virtual, 12:05 pm ET

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio set a new record on September 11, 2023 for longest continuous spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut. The record of 355 days was set by Mark Vande Hei last year.

On September 13, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy will phone Rubio at 12:05 pm ET to talk about the record-breaking mission. It will air on NASA TV, NASA Live, and the NASA app.

The mission duration was unexpected. Rubio and his Russian crewmates Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were supposed to return to Earth in March 2023, but their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft leaked all its coolant into space and was deemed unsafe to transport humans. The next in the series, Soyuz MS-23, was being readied to launch their replacements, but instead was launched empty so it could be used to bring them home.

That meant a 6-month launch delay for the original Soyuz MS-23 crew and a 6-month landing delay for Rubio et al.

The Soyuz-23 — now Soyuz MS-24 — crew of two Russians and an American will launch on September 15.

Rubio and his crewmates will return to Earth on September 27 after a handover period. They will have been on the ISS for 371 days at that point.  Prokopyev and Petelin will not set a record for Russian continuous presence in space. Valeri Polyakov holds the world record of 438 days (1994-1995) and Sergey Avdeyev spent 380 days (1988-1989) on Russia’s Mir space station.