NASA Astronaut Returns Home After Record 371 Days Aboard ISS

Posted on September 27, 2023
Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is helped out of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft just minutes after landing back on Earth.
Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is helped out of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft just minutes after landing back on Earth. (Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Astronaut Frank Rubio is finally home after a record stay aboard the ISS.

Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday morning.

His 371-day stint breaks the record for longest spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut, breaking the previous record of 355 days set by Mark Vande Hei last year.

Rubio wasn’t going for the record – a spacecraft issue ended up extending his stay by six months.  He admits that if he’d known the trip would last more than a year, “I probably would have declined”.

Could you last a full year aboard the ISS?

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