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PREVIEW: Russian cosmonauts to set record for longest single ISS spaceflight

The new record will be set at 4:06:51 p.m. Moscow time

MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, who is a TASS special correspondent aboard the ISS, and Nikolay Chub will on Friday set the record for the longest single mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos said.

"Oleg Kononenko and Nikolay Chub are to set the record of the longest uninterrupted stay aboard the International Space Station," the agency said in a statement.

Kononenko and Chub’s mission will exceed the previous record set by their colleagues Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 370 days 21 hours 22 minutes and 16 seconds aboard the ISS in 2022-2023.

The new record will be set at 4:06:51 p.m. Moscow time (1:06:51 p.m. GMT).

Kononenko and Chub arrived to the ISS last September. Their return to the Earth is scheduled for Monday, September 23. Their space mission will last 374 days in total.

The longest orbital flight in the history of space exploration - 437 days 17 hours 58 minutes and 17 seconds - was performed by Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov from January 1994 through March 1995 on the Mir station.

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