Every weekend, an image that made the news or caught our attention. On September 15, a new Russian-American crew flew to the International Space Station, with a new record in sight.
Ten people back on board
Since September 15, the International Space Station has three new passengers: the Russians Oleg Kononenko And Nikolai Tchoub and the American Loral O’Hara.
They were launched on September 15 from the cosmodrome of Baikonurin Kazakhstan, aboard the Soyuz MS 24.
Takeoff occurred at 3:44 p.m. UTC, and docking with the module Rassvet of the’ISS ended successfully just over three hours later.
They then found the seven members of the end of theShipping 69: the Russians Sergei Prokopiev And Dmitri PetelineAmericans Frank Rubio And Jasmine MoghbeliDanish Andreas MogensenJapanese Satoshi Furukawa and the Russian Konstantin Borisov.
The first three passengers arrived in September 2022 aboard the Soyuz MS 22, which suffered a leak from its cooling system the following December, causing the sending of a new spacecraft (Soyuz MS 23) and the extension of their stay; this allowed Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitri Peteline and Frank Rubio to beat the longevity record aboard the ISS (355 days), which had been established between April 2021 and March 2022 by the Russian Pyotr Dubrov and the American Mark Vande Hei.
The four other passengers are members of the Crew 7 mission, which joined the ISS on August 27.
Always more
Oleg Kononenko and Nikolaï Tchoub started a stay on September 15 which must – voluntarily this time – end at the end of September… 2024, or after 375 days: they should therefore do even better than the last space marathoners to date , whose return to Earth is now scheduled for September 27, after 370 days of flight…
Their teammate Loral O’Hara, for her part, will only stay “only” six months aboard the ISS: she should return next March, aboard the Soyuz MS 25.
She will then find herself alongside the Russian Oleg Novitsky and Belarusian Marina Vasilyevskaya.
The latter two will have been launched a dozen days earlier, alongside the American Tracy Dyson which, for its part, will remain in orbit for six months.
A hard-lived record
Oleg Kononenko’s new marathon stay will allow him to accumulate no less than 1,111 days of microgravity (in five flights), becoming the first man to exceed 1,000 days in orbit, and relegating his compatriot to second place Gennadi Padalka and its 878 cumulative days (also in five flights).
But an old world record for longevity in space remains undethroned: the 437 days spent around the Earth by the Russian doctor Valery Poliakovbetween January 1994 and March 1995, during the operation of the station Mir…
Andreas Mogensen soon to be captain
After the departure of Soyuz MS 24, on September 27, Expedition 70 will begin.
His command will return to Andreas Mogensen, who will replace Sergei Prokopiev and become the sixth European to lead the ISS from the Belgian Frank De Winne end of 2009.
The Dane will assume this role until the eve of Crew 7’s return to Earth, in February 2024, i.e. a little over five months: a record for an astronaut fromEuropean Space Agency.
