WASHINGTON — A Soyuz capsule landed in Kazakhstan Sept. 27, returning two Russians and one American from the International Space Station after greater than a yr in orbit.
The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft landed in its designated landing zone in Kazakhstan at 7:17 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft had undocked from the station’s Prichal module at 3:54 a.m. Eastern.
On board the Soyuz were Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio. They launched to the station last September on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft for what was originally planned to be a typical six-month stay.
Those plans modified, though, when the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft suffered a coolant leak in December. NASA and Roscosmos decided weeks later to not use that spacecraft to bring back the crew, launching an uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 in February to take its place. The crew who were to fly to the station on Soyuz MS-23 in March — Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Loral O’Hara — were bumped to Soyuz MS-24, which launched to the station Sept. 15.
NASA and Roscosmos prolonged the stay of Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio by six months. The three spent 371 days in space, the third-longest spaceflight after the 438 days spent by Valeri Polyakov in 1994 and 1995 and 380 days spent by Sergei Avdeyev in 1998 and 1999, each on the Mir space station.
The three set the record for longest stay on the ISS. Rubio also set the record for longest single spaceflight by an American, breaking the mark of 355 days set by Mark Vande Hei in 2021 and 2022.
In a call with reporters from the ISS Sept. 19, Rubio admitted he wouldn’t have signed up for a yr in space if offered upfront. “In the event that they had asked me up front, before you begin training,” he said, “I probably would have declined, and that’s only due to family.”
Nevertheless, he said that when he began training, he was committed to the mission no matter its length. “Ultimately, that’s our job, and we have now to get the mission done.”
He said the toughest point within the mission was when his mission was prolonged by six months. “That call really took a few months,” he said, as NASA and Roscosmos evaluated the choices, giving him and his family the power to arrange for that extension. “Even though it was difficult, truthfully I had already come to terms with it.”
The prolonged mission, he noted, offered invaluable experience for future long-duration missions, akin to eventual missions to Mars. “The psychological factor was more of an element than I had expected, but again, just having a very good team around you is such an incredible help,” he said, including finding the appropriate balance between work and leisure.
Rubio said he looked forward to reuniting together with his wife and youngsters, in addition to some peace and quiet. “We’re blessed enough to have a quiet backyard, and I feel just going out within the yard and having fun with the trees and the silence,” he said, a contrast to the “constant hum” of the machinery on the station. “I’m looking forward to being outside and having fun with the peace and quiet.”