HOUSTON, Texas: Having lived more than 340 days in space after his 9th April, 2021 launch, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has broken the record for the longest U.S. spaceflight, even as his mission in space continues.
The 55-year-old retired Army colonel is expected to end his mission at 355 days.
According to Space.com, Vande Hei will surpass NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s record set on 2nd March, 2013.
Vande Hei is slated to touch down in Kazakhstan, aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, at the end of the month.
During a CBS News interview in January, Vande Hei said, “I did not know with certainty that the flight would be this long when I launched, but I certainly knew that it was a possibility. I felt like it was an opportunity to fill a need that we had, and I was very happy to be able to fill it.”
Russia currently holds the world record of 438 continuous days in space, when Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov flew the longest space mission in history nearly 30 years ago, from January 1994 to March 1995.
“If they said I needed to stay up longer, I would happily stay up longer, but I would not volunteer to stay up longer,” Vande Hei added.
Meanwhile, NASA’s space station program manager Joel Montalbano said the Russian Space Agency has confirmed that it is ready to bring Vande Hei back to Earth.
A NASA plane and a small team will be on hand to bring Vande Hei back home to Houston, TX.
The U.S. and Russia are the main operators of the International Space Station, which has been permanently occupied for 21 years.
NASA is hoping to keep the ISS running until 2030, but Russia has yet to commit beyond the original 2024 end date.
