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Russian cosmonaut Padalka sets new time record in space

Gennady Padalka's overall orbit time is 878 days

MOSCOW, April 22. /RASS/. The World Air Sports Federation (FAI) on Friday confirmed that Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka set the world record in the overall orbit time of 878 days, breaking his previous record of 804 days.

"The record was confirmed," Padalka told TASS on Friday.

Last June Gennady Padalka broke the 10-year-old record for the number of cumulative days in space, as he reached 804 days in space, being on board the International Space Station (ISS). His more than two years of cumulative time in space puts him ahead of the previous record of 803 days in space that was registered by cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev on August 5, 2005.

Padalka made his five spaceflights, spending record 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 24 seconds in space.

According to the cosmonaut, his next goal is to set 1000-day record.

Padalka, aged 57, graduated from Yeysk Military Aviation College in 1979. After graduation, he served as a pilot and later a senior pilot in the Russian Air Force, eventually attaining the rank of colonel. He has logged 1500 flight hours in six types of aircraft as a First Class Pilot of the Russian Air Force.

On August 13,1998 Padalka launched with Sergei Avdeev aboard Soyuz TM-28 to become the crew of Mir Expedition 26.

Padalka is a recipient of the Hero Star of the Russian Federation and the title of Russian Federation Test-Cosmonaut. He is decorated with Fatherland Service Medal fourth class, Medals of the Russian Federation and also Medal of the International Fund of Cosmonautics support for Service to Cosmonautics. Padalka is a prize winner of the Russian Federation Government in the field of science and technology.

The FAI was founded at a conference held in Paris October 12-14, 1905, which was organized following a resolution passed by the Olympic Congress held in Brussels on June 10, 1905 calling for the creation of an Association "to regulate the sport of flying, ... the various aviation meetings and advance the science and sport of Aeronautics.

Among the FAI's responsibilities are the verification of record-breaking flights. For a flight to be registered as a "World Record," it has to comply with the FAI's strict rules, which include a proviso that the record must exceed the previous record by a certain percentage.

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