Now holding the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is set to leave the International Space Station and return to Earth on Wednesday, September 27th. NASA will offer comprehensive coverage of this event, starting at 12 a.m. EDT, which will be available for live streaming on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the official agency website. You can watch the event online at the following link: https://www.nasa.gov/live
Rubio, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, will detach their Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft from the station’s Prichal module at 3:55 a.m. EDT. This marks the conclusion of their 371-day mission, during which they covered a staggering distance of 157.4 million miles and completed 5,963 orbits around Earth. Following the undocking, the crew will make their way to a landing site in the Kazakhstan steppe, situated southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, with an expected arrival time of 7:17 a.m. (5:14 p.m. Kazakhstan time).
Upon landing, Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin will be transported from the landing site to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From there, Rubio will board a NASA aircraft bound for Houston.
Frank Rubio, who embarked on his journey on September 21, 2022, officially secured the new record for the longest single spaceflight by a United States astronaut on September 11th, surpassing the previous record of 355 days held by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.
Originally scheduled for a return to Earth in March, the crew’s mission was extended due to a coolant leak experienced by the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft they launched on.
The schedule for mission coverage is as follows (all times are Eastern):
12 a.m. – Coverage begins with farewell and hatch closing (hatch closing is scheduled at 12:20 a.m.).
3:30 a.m. – Undocking coverage commences (undocking is scheduled at 3:55 a.m.).
6 a.m. – Coverage of deorbit burn and landing begins (deorbit burn is scheduled at 6:24 a.m., with landing anticipated at 7:17 a.m.).
