CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aren’t the archetypal to tally precocious successful space, and their 9 ½-month ngo falls abbreviated of immoderate endurance record.
But ne'er earlier has a speedy travel morphed into specified a agelong haul.
The brace launched past June connected a trial formation of Boeing’s caller Starliner unit capsule, figuring to beryllium gone 8 days. By the clip they splashed down with SpaceX connected Tuesday, they had spent 286 days disconnected the satellite — 36 times longer than anticipated.
“If you look astatine it mathematically, by percent of the archetypal planned mission, this is the largest percent extension," NASA’s abstraction operations main Ken Bowersox.
A erstwhile astronaut, Bowersox saw his ain abstraction presumption ngo abruptly prolonged. He was up determination with Don Pettit, who’s presently aboard the orbiting lab, erstwhile shuttle Columbia broke isolated during reentry successful 2003, sidesplitting each 7 connected committee and grounding the shuttle fleet for much than 2 years.
“The reasons were unspeakable that we stayed longer connected our mission," said Bowersox, whose planned four-month enactment clocked successful astatine much than 5 months.
Here’s a look astatine immoderate others who recovered themselves stuck successful abstraction — by prime oregon not — on with immoderate chill spaceflight statistics.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio saw his ngo doubled successful magnitude — from 6 months to 12 months — aft his assigned Russian Soyuz capsule took a micrometeorite deed portion docked to the abstraction presumption and leaked each its coolant. A replacement capsule was launched to bring Rubio and his 2 Russian crewmates location successful 2023. His 371-day spaceflight is the longest by an American. NASA's archetypal year-in-space astronaut was Scott Kelly; helium logged 340 days astatine the abstraction presumption successful 2015 and 2016. His identical duplicate brother, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, besides served arsenic a NASA astronaut connected abbreviated shuttle flights.
Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov spent 14 ½ months aboard the Mir abstraction presumption successful the mid-1990s. He volunteered for it. As a physician, helium wanted to observe the changes successful the quality assemblage and caput aft a prolonged play of weightlessness. His 437-day spaceflight remains a satellite record. Polyakov died successful 2022 astatine property 80.
NASA’s Christina Koch holds the rubric with her 328-day abstraction presumption ngo successful 2019 and 2020. During that aforesaid flight, she performed the archetypal all-female spacewalk alongside Jessica Meir. Koch is presently assigned to NASA’s archetypal Artemis crew, which volition alert astir the satellite and backmost arsenic aboriginal arsenic adjacent year.
Russian Oleg Kononenko past twelvemonth became the archetypal idiosyncratic to ace 1,000 days successful abstraction implicit the people of a career. By the clip helium returned from the abstraction presumption past fall, he'd logged an unthinkable 1,111 days aloft implicit 5 spaceflights — a combined full of much than 3 years. Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is America's astir experienced abstraction flier with 675 days implicit 3 agelong presumption stints and 1 abbreviated backstage travel for Axiom Space. She's owed to pb different Axiom unit to the abstraction presumption aboriginal this spring. Because of her delayed homecoming, Williams moved into the No. 2 spot with 608 days successful abstraction implicit 3 missions.
Williams became the astir experienced pistillate spacewalker successful the world, acknowledgment to her prolonged mission. She ventured retired doubly earlier this twelvemonth for presumption repairs and maintenance, bringing her spacewalking vocation full to 62 hours. Over 3 abstraction presumption missions, she performed 9 spacewalks, 1 little than Whitson. But Whitson’s spacewalks were shorter, totaling 60 hours.
Retired Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev holds the wide grounds with 16 spacewalks totaling astir 80 hours. NASA’s spacewalking champ is retired astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria with 10 spacewalks for a full of 67 hours.
A NASA tally shows 721 radical person flown successful space, including tourists connected abbreviated hops and subject X-15 pilots. Of that total, 102 are women. The archetypal idiosyncratic successful abstraction was the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin connected April 12, 1961. The archetypal American, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, followed connected May 5, 1961. The archetypal pistillate successful abstraction was the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova successful 1963. Sally Ride became the archetypal American pistillate successful abstraction successful 1983. Of those four, lone Tereshkova is inactive alive.
NASA counts 47 connected its progressive astronaut list. Twenty are women. That doesn't see respective astronauts who person moved implicit to absorption roles astatine the abstraction agency.
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