Liputan6.com, Washington – United States (US) astronaut Frank Rubio has set an extraordinary record as the US astronaut with the longest service in space. It has been in low Earth orbit for more than 355 days, breaking the previous record held by retired NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.
Collect CNN, Wednesday (13/9/2023), Rubio who was in International Space Station (ISS) or International Space Station since September 2022, officially broke this record on Monday 11 September at 13.40 local time. This is according to a spokesperson for the space agency.
This extraordinary feat reflects astronaut Rubio’s dedication and resilience during his tenure on the space station.
Even so, Rubio’s mission was not initially intended to break records. When he and two colleagues – cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin – departed for the space station in a Russian Soyuz capsule in September 2022, they planned to carry out the mission for only six months.
In December 2022, the spacecraft experienced a coolant leak, causing Roscosmos, the Russian Aeronautics and Space Administration, to deem it unsafe to bring the crew home.
Instead, Rubio and his colleagues will have to wait for a replacement spacecraft, the Soyuz MS-23 capsule, which is scheduled to dock with the space station on February 25.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson described Rubio’s journey as “the essence of exploration” and recognized his extraordinary contributions to the future of space exploration.
2023-09-13 12:40:00
#Astronaut #Frank #Rubio #Breaks #Record #Longest #Journey #Space
