MOSCOW (AP) — Two Russians set a record Friday for the longest continuous stay on the International Space Station, the Russian space agency said.
According to Roscosmos, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub broke the old record of 370 days, 21 hours and 22 minutes, set in September 2023 by Russians Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin and American Francisco Rubio.
Chub and Kononenko will add several more days to their tally before they are expected to return to Earth on Monday.
Kononenko, 59, holds other space-time records, including the longest cumulative time in space: 1,110 days over five missions when he lands in Kazakhstan next week.
Two American astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have been unintentionally aboard the space station for much of the Russians’ record-breaking stay. Williams and Wilmore were expected to spend just eight days on the ISS when they launched in June, but their troubled Boeing Starliner capsule was sent back without them. They are now set to return in February.