A 59-year-old Russian cosmonaut has become the first person to spend 1,000 days in the spaceas indicated on Wednesday by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Oleg Kononenkoreached the milestone on Tuesday during his fifth trip to the International Space Stationa series of missions that began in 2008.
His current mission on the ISS began on September 15, 2023, when he took off together with the astronaut from the POT Loral O'Hara and his compatriot Nikolai Chub.
Kononenko broke the record for the most accumulated time in space in February 2024, when he surpassed the total of 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds set by fellow Russian Gennady Padalka in 2015.
If Kononenko's mission ends on schedule, September 23, 2024, he will have spent a total of 1,110 days in orbit.
“There is this certainty that you have achieved something new and important, that you have surpassed a certain milestone, touched the unknown,” Konenko told the Russian news agency TASS. “It gives you confidence and pride in the work you have done”.
He also told TASS that his American colleagues on the ISS were among the first to congratulate him on his achievement.
The International Space Station is one of the few fields where USA and Russia They continue to cooperate closely after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Roscosmos announced in December that its cross-flight program with NASA to take astronauts to the ISS had been extended until 2025.