Expedition 69 Crew Earth Return After 1-Year Mission | International Space Station

Expedition 69 Crew Earth Return After 1-Year Mission | International Space Station

Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is carried to a medical tent shortly after he, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev landed in their Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. 

Expedition 69 Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev (Russia) is carried to a medical tent shortly after landing.

Expedition 69 Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin (Russia) is carried to a medical tent shortly after landing.

Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, left, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin are seen inside their Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft just minutes after landing.

Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is helped out of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft just minutes after landing.

Expedition 69 Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev (Russia)

Expedition 69 Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin (Russia)

Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio left, Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, center, and Dmitri Petelin of Russia sit in chairs outside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft after landing

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio ended his record-breaking time in space with a parachute-assisted landing in the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, at 7:17 a.m. EDT (5:17 p.m. Kazakhstan time) Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. Rubio, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin of Russia, began the journey back to Earth at 3:54 a.m. when the Soyuz undocked from the International Space Station.

Rubio arrived at the International Space Station on Sept. 21, 2022, spending 371 days in low Earth orbit, and breaking the previous American record held by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei by 16 days.

During his 371 days aboard the station, Rubio experienced:

Approximately 5,936 orbits of Earth

Approximately 157,412,306 statute miles traveled (equivalent of approximately 328 round trips to the Moon and back)

Fifteen spacecraft visited the International Space Station, including four Roscosmos Progress cargo ships, two Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft, two Roscosmos Soyuz, four crewed SpaceX Dragons, and three uncrewed SpaceX Dragons.

Expedition 70 is now underway on the space station with NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and new station commander Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Konstantin Borisov.

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Image Capture Date: Sept. 27, 2023

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