NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is about to do what no other American has done before: Rejoice a whole 12 months in space.
The record-breaking NASA astronaut spoke to reporters from the International Space Station on Tuesday (Sept. 19), just two days ahead of the 365-day mark for his current mission. The Salvadoran-American physician, born in Los Angeles, also paid tribute to the mentors within the military and at NASA that helped him reach space.
“You’ve the chance to work with an amazing breadth of great individuals (within the military), and I’ve seen the identical at NASA. I believe it’s in every community, not only the Latino community,” Rubio told Space.com, speaking during National Hispanic American Heritage Month.
“As a nation, I believe we’d like to rise up more. More men and ladies must rise up and be role models for the younger generation. Ultimately, the truth is none of us are perfect. I’m especially not perfect. I believe the importance of role modeling is to indicate effort, attitude, and if you mess up, admitting it. Admitting your mistakes, and showing that resilience to achieve this, after which recover after that.”
With an expected landing date of Sept. 27, Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will surpass 371 days in orbit and be amongst only seven individuals who have spent greater than a 12 months in space. They weren’t imagined to be here this long; a six-month mission transformed to 12 after their ride home sprung a leak in December.
Rubio, on his first flight, was only halfway through his expected six-month stay when his MS-22 spacecraft quickly lost all its coolant on Dec. 15, 2022, prompting the cancellation of a spacewalk by already-suited-up cosmonauts. In the next weeks, Roscosmos and NASA together went through multiple spaceship options. The Russians elected to rapidly send up an empty substitute Soyuz, MS-23, which docked with the ISS on Feb. 25.
In case of an ISS emergency before the MS-23 arrival, Rubio did have an alternate escape plan: A short lived seat using tie-down straps on the ground of an already docked and fully occupied SpaceX Crew Dragon. Prokopyev and Petelin were authorized to make use of MS-22 if really needed, as two humans wouldn’t heat up the uncooled spacecraft as rapidly as a full crew of three.
While this emergency scenario fortunately didn’t come to be, Rubio and his crewmates still had to change their 2023 plans. As an alternative of six months in space, they’d spend greater than a 12 months waiting for his or her relief crew to reach. (The relief crew needed yet one more spacecraft, MS-24, to roll off the assembly line and their training was not finished in time for the accelerated shipment of MS-23, their original ride to space.)
Rubio told reporters that if he had been asked ahead of time to spend a 12 months in space, he would have said no attributable to essential family events; during his prolonged stay in space, his oldest child finished off her first 12 months on the U.S. Naval Academy, while his second-oldest began training on the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“One thing that I’ve tried to do, and hopefully have achieved — I actually have not done it perfectly — is to remain positive and stay regular throughout the mission, despite the interior ups and downs,” Rubio said, noting the job of an astronaut is to serve ISS staffing needs as required. “You are attempting to simply give attention to the job and on the mission and remain regular. Because ultimately, day by day, you’ve got to indicate up and do the work up here on this very unforgiving environment.”
Fortunately, the delayed liftoff of the MS-24 crew went exactly as planned. Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub safely launched and docked to the ISS on Sept. 15 and at the moment are undergoing standard handover procedures before Rubio and his crew come back home.
Meanwhile, Rubio wrapped up essentially double the science as planned, starting from tomato harvests (his share unfortunately floated away before he could eat a bite) to autonomous robots to microgravity studies of bubbles. He also did three critical spacewalks to upgrade ISS power systems.
Rubio’s record easily exceeds the previous 355-day mark set by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei. Vande Hei’s stay was also prolonged in space to a 12 months, but he had been warned before launch that space station staffing needs might necessitate a change. Vande Hei spoke with Rubio earlier this month from NASA’s Johnson Space Station in Houston during a conversation reflecting on the 2 record-setting efforts.
The 4 other individuals who have spent longer than twelve months in space were all Soviet cosmonauts visiting the then-Soviet Mir space station: Valery Polyakov (topping the list at 437 days), Sergey Avdeev, Musa Manarov and Vladimir Titov.
Rubio said besides hugging his wife and kids, after getting back to Earth he’s most looking forward to hearing silence in his backyard. On the ISS, he said, “We now have a relentless hum of machinery that is keeping us alive. It’s extremely essential, but it surely is just a relentless hum … so I’m looking forward to simply being outside and having fun with the peace and quiet.”