American astronaut who set a record returns to Earth.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian colleagues returned from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts, landed safely on the Kazakhstan steppe at 6:17 PM on September 27th ( Hanoi time), concluding its 371-day mission on the ISS. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio became the first American to spend a full year in space. The other two crew members, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin from the Russian space agency Roscosmos, also spent a full year on the ISS.

Upon their return, the trio will fly to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From there, Prokopyev and Petelin will return to Star City, a suburb of Moscow, while Rubio will be transported by NASA aircraft to Houston and NASA's Johnson Space Center.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio (in white shirt) rests after landing. Photo: Roscosmos/Reuters. — NASA astronaut Frank Rubio (in white shirt) rests after landing. Photo: *Roscosmos/Reuters.*

The return mission made Rubio the new record holder for the longest mission ever undertaken by an American astronaut. On September 11th, he surpassed the previous record of 355 days, set by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei in 2022.

Meanwhile, Prokopyev and Petelin are the sixth and seventh Russians to spend at least a year in space. Soviet cosmonauts Sergey Avdeev, Musa Manarov, Vladimir Titov, and Valery Polyakov spent more than 365 days on the former Mir space station. Polyakov, who died in 2022, still holds the world record for the longest space mission with 437 days. Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio's 371-day mission is the third longest in history.

The trio had no idea they would be on the ISS for so long when they launched from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft on September 21, 2022. Their mission was extended by six months due to a coolant leak in the Soyuz MS-22, rendering it unsafe to return them to Earth. Russia launched a rescue spacecraft, the Soyuz MS-23, but the return was delayed to maintain crew rotation schedules.

The Soyuz MS-22/MS-23 mission was Prokopyev's second space flight. To date, he has spent a total of 568 days outside of Earth, ranking 12th in the world. Meanwhile, this was Petelin and Rubio's first space flight. The trio of astronauts orbited the Earth 5,936 times, traveling 253,330,550 km, approximately equivalent to 328 round trips to the Moon.

Thu Thao (According to Space )

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