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A NASA astronaut safely returned to Earth on Wednesday after spending 371 days in area, a report in spaceflight for American astronauts.
Frank Rubio of NASA and his crewmates, the Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, made a protected, parachute-assisted touchdown southeast of the distant city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 7:17 a.m. Japanese time.
After post-landing medical exams, the crew will return to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Mr. Rubio will then board a NASA aircraft certain for his return to Houston the place he lives together with his household.
“For me, actually, clearly, hugging my spouse and youngsters goes to be paramount, and I’ll in all probability give attention to that for the primary couple days,” Mr. Rubio mentioned throughout a information convention from area final week.
Mr. Rubio had anticipated to be gone solely six months when he first launched into his journey on the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan final September.
His return was upended in December, after mission management discovered a coolant leak within the Soyuz spacecraft. The leak may have created dangerously scorching temperatures for the crew on their return to Earth, so a special spacecraft needed to be despatched to the area station, delaying Mr. Rubio’s return. The one spaceflight by Mr. Rubio surpassed the report of 355 days for a U.S. astronaut, which was beforehand held by Mark Vande Hei, NASA mentioned.
Mr. Rubio’s unplanned prolonged keep was extra than simply hitting one other milestone, mentioned Invoice Nelson, the administrator of NASA.
“It’s a significant contribution to our understanding of long-duration area missions,” Mr. Nelson mentioned in an announcement. “Our astronauts make extraordinary sacrifices away from their properties and family members to additional discovery.”
Throughout his extended keep, Mr. Rubio made “invaluable scientific contributions,” Mr. Nelson mentioned. The mission supplied researchers the chance to watch the results that lengthy spaceflight has on people because the company plans to return to the Moon with the Artemis missions and to discover Mars, he added.
Mr. Rubio spent hours conducting analysis on a wide range of matters from crops to bodily sciences research. These included investigations into how micro organism adapt to spaceflight and the way train impacts people throughout lengthy missions.
Throughout his mission, Mr. Rubio accomplished about 5,936 orbits aboard the area station. He journeyed greater than 157 million miles, roughly the equal of 328 journeys to the Moon and again.
