Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko today set a new record for his stay in outer space by surpassing the 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds held by his predecessor, the also Russian Guennadi Padalka.
Kononenko, who has been on the International Space Station (ISS) since last September, established the new mark on Sunday at 11.30.08 Moscow time (08.30.08 GMT).
The 59-year-old Russian is now completing his fifth mission to the orbital platform and will set the new record at 1,110 days upon his return to Earth on September 23.
In statements to the TASS agency, he assured that man must in the future build a station that is “an authentic space house”, larger and more comfortable, and less dependent on the Earth.
To do this, he recommended improving the water regeneration, oxygen supply and space debris recycling systems.
The thousand days will be reached on June 5, twenty minutes after midnight.
Kononenko, engineer of expedition number 70 and commander of expedition 71, had 736 days when he traveled to the ISS in September 2023 aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft.
The Russian first flew to the station in April 2008 as part of the sixteenth expedition and has since performed six spacewalks (39 hours and 54 minutes).
For his part, Padalka retired in 2017 at the age of 58 after verifying that he had no options to participate in a sixth mission to the ISS and reach a thousand days in space.
“It’s a shame. It always makes me sad when a prepared, experienced and motivated man with a long career leaves the ranks” of cosmonauts, commented then Sergei Krikalyov, director of the pilot program of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.
On June 29, 2015, Padalka surpassed the record held by Krikaliov with 803 days in space by raising it to 878 days during his fifth mission.
