NASA astronaut Frank Rubio returns to Earth after record-breaking one-year flight on the US space station

Outgoing space station commander Sergei Prokopyev and his two Soyuz crewmates, co-pilot Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, packed their bags Tuesday for a fiery return to Earth early Wednesday to close out a stay of 371 days in year-long orbit: the longest flight. in American space history.

When the trio launched in September 2022, they expected to spend six months aboard the International Space Station, the normal duty period for a long-duration crew.

But a coolant leak disabled its Soyuz MS-22/68S ferry last December, prompting the Russians to release a replacement — Soyuz MS-23/69S — last February. That meant Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio had to stay in the air for six more months to get the Russian crew’s rotation schedule back on track.

If all goes well, they will finally return home on Wednesday and undock from the space station at 3:54 a.m. EDT. After a fiery plunge back into the atmosphere, the Soyuz crew module, suspended beneath a large parachute, is expected to make a hard landing near the city of Dzhezkazgan, touching down in the Kazakh steppe at 7:17 a.m. EDT (5:17 p.m. local time).

During a brief change of command ceremony on Tuesday, ISS Expedition 69 Commander Prokopyev handed over the laboratory to European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen.

Speaking to the departing crew members, Mogensen congratulated them, saying, “you have demonstrated resilience, professionalism and grace in the face of unexpected challenges and significant uncertainty.”

“It’s one thing to launch into space knowing you’re going to be here for a year,” he added. “It’s completely different for you and your families to find out toward the end of your six-month mission that you’re going to spend six more months in space. But you took it on and you excelled.”

He thanked Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio for their “competence, dedication and hard work” in keeping the station in order and “preparing us for success” on ISS Expedition 70.

“We hope to leave the space station in the same condition we found it,” Mogensen concluded. “No one deserves to return home to your families more than you. We wish you a safe flight and a smooth landing.”

Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will be replaced by Soyuz MS-24/70S commander Oleg Kononenko, flight engineer Nicolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who arrived at the space station on September 15.

Mogensen flew to the station. the 26 August aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft alongside NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio plan to say goodbye to their seven station crewmates overnight Tuesday, float on their replacement Soyuz MS-23/69S ferry and wait to be undocked from the Russian Prichal multiport module.

Assuming a timely landing, the crew will have logged 370 days, 21 hours and 22 minutes off the planet on a journey spanning 5,936 orbits and 157 million miles. Prokopyev’s total time in space over two flights will be 568 days.

The late cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the world record for the longest space flight: a 438-day stay aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1994-95. Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will move to third place on the list, just behind retired cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev, who spent 380 days aboard Mir in 1998-99.

The longest previous American flight was made by Mark Vande Hei, who spent 355 days aboard the International Space Station in 2021-22.