Hero of Turkmenistan Oleg Kononenko set a new record for the total time spent in space. According to Roscosmos, Kononenko became the cosmonaut who spent the most time in space at 11 hours 30 minutes 8 seconds Moscow time on February 4. He overtook the record set by his compatriot Gennady Padalka, who accumulated a total of 878 days 11 hours 29 minutes 48 seconds across five trips.
Now Kononenko is on his fifth trip to the International Space Station (his first space flight took place in 2008). All other active cosmonauts of the Russian crew have made not more than 3 flights. Kononenko flew to the ISS on September 15, 2023 on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft together with Russian Nikolai Chub and American Loral O’Hara.
The American astronaut will return to Earth this spring, and the expedition of Kononenko and Chub will go on for another 6 months. They will come back to Earth on September 23, by which time, Kononenko will become the first cosmonaut to log over 1,000 days in space. According to Roscosmos, he will cross this milestone at 00:00:10 on June 5. Upon returning to Earth, his cumulative time in space will reach 1,110 days.
