Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub have reached a new milestone in the history of space flights. On September 20, 2024, at 16:06:51 Moscow time, they surpassed the previous record for the duration of a single mission to the International Space Station (ISS), “Roscosmos” reported on its Telegram channel.
The previous record belonged to an international crew of Russians Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, and American Frank Rubio. Their mission in 2022-2023 lasted 370 days, 21 hours, 22 minutes and 16 seconds.
Kononenko and Chub began their mission on September 15, 2023, arriving at the ISS on the “Soyuz MS-24” spacecraft. Their fellow mission partner, NASA astronaut Laural O'Hara, returned to Earth in the spring of 2024 along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and the first Belarusian cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya.
Kononenko and Chub are scheduled to complete their record-breaking mission on September 23, 2024, returning to Earth on the “Soyuz MS-25” spacecraft along with American astronaut Tracy Dyson. Their expected stay on the ISS will be more than 374 days.
