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Through the ultimate minutes of Rubio’s 371-day keep on the Worldwide Area Station, a NASA live feed digicam confirmed Rubio shaking fingers and hugging associates, often smiling and taking a look at his wristwatch. Rubio’s ultimate act on the house middle was to pose for some last-minute photographs earlier than getting into the Soyuz MS-23 car that was to take him residence. Hatches of the spacecraft closed at 00:41 a.m. Wednesday, in accordance with NASA.
He’s anticipated to land in Kazakhstan round 7 a.m. Japanese time Wednesday, according to NASA.
For an anxious few months, Rubio’s return had been unsure. The spacecraft that he clambered into was a hasty replacement for the Soyuz that launched to deliver him and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, to the Worldwide Area Station on Sept. 21, 2022. A coolant leak on that vessel required NASA and Russian house company Roscosmos to ship Rubio and his stranded crewmates a substitute spacecraft for his or her journey residence, delaying the arrival of a brand new group of astronauts to alleviate them.
And so Rubio’s deliberate six-month keep on the Worldwide Area Station was doubled, touchdown him a NASA file. Rubio’s 371-day spaceflight topped the earlier file of 355 days held by Mark Vande Hei, who returned from the house station in March 2022. Throughout Rubio’s mission, he traveled 157 million miles, or 5,963 orbits of the Earth, NASA said.
The world file for the longest steady spaceflight is held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days aboard the Russian house station Mir between 1994 and 1995.
Rubio told reporters last week that spending the additional time away from his household in Miami taxed him. Confronted upfront with the prospect of spending a 12 months aboard the ISS, “I most likely would have declined,” he mentioned. However he knew he was signing up for the sudden as an astronaut. Rubio credited the opposite 28 crewmates who rotated via the house station throughout his keep for conserving his spirits up.
“To have flown with that many individuals … is basically fairly particular,” Rubio mentioned in a September interview with Vande Hei shared by NASA.
Rubio made probably the most of his additional time in orbit. He helped conduct a number of science experiments aboard the Worldwide Area Station, together with six geared towards finding out the results of extended spaceflight on the human physique. Rubio grew tomatoes aboard the house station, examined zero-gravity train gear and supplied organic samples that can assist NASA plan for future missions to the moon and Mars that would lengthen even longer than his spaceflight, the company said.
Better than Rubio’s feat of resilience, although, was his household’s, he advised Vande Hei.
“Actually, my household has been sort of the cornerstone that’s impressed me to hopefully preserve considerably of a superb perspective whereas I’ve been up right here,” Rubio mentioned. “The resilience that my spouse and children confirmed. They confronted lots of challenges this previous 12 months, they usually simply thrived all through the entire complete course of.”
Rubio mentioned he’d loosen up within the quiet of his Miami yard upon returning to Earth. After he lands in Kazakhstan, he’ll return with NASA to Houston, the place he’ll be only one extra brief flight away from residence. This one, hopefully, received’t be delayed.
Andrew Jeong in Seoul contributed to this report.
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