American astronaut Mark Vande Hei has spent almost a year in space. This is a new NASA record of maximum spaceflight time. Vande Hei broke the US space flight record of 340 days on Tuesday. He departs on March 30 with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a landing in Kazakhstan. This development comes at a time when Russia and Ukraine are experiencing a war-like crisis. Read more to find out.
Today in the ISS, Mark Vande Hei (@Astro_Sabot) broke the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American astronaut – 340 days.
Earlier this year, @CBSNews spoke to Vande Hei about how he’s handling the extended mission (spoiler alert: he’s meditating in the dome). pic.twitter.com/k7OT8nrti4— Miles Doran (@MilesDoran) March 15, 2022
Vande Hei and his achievements
Vande Hei, 55, became the first person to surpass retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and set the highest flight time record of 55 days in space. By the time he returns to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz after completing his mission as scheduled on March 30, he will have set a new record for the maximum spaceflight duration of 355 days. This was part of the US space mission 65. It was launched in April 2021 on a Russian spaceship with Russian cosmonauts Soyuz and Vande Hei. They were sent into orbit around the lab for spacewalks, science experiments, and station maintenance.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has set the record for most consecutive days in space by an American explorer. He has contributed to dozens of studies on the @Space station since arrival in April 2021.
MORE HERE >> pic.twitter.com/BjNNAzPVcy
— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) March 15, 2022
Know the American astronaut better
Vande Hei, a retired army colonel, moved to the space station last April and launched on a Soyuz from Kazakhstan with Pyotr Dubrov and another Russian. He and Dubrov stayed twice as long as usual to accommodate a Russian film crew visiting in October. He served as leader of the Army’s space support team, then battalion operations officer, and was deployed to Iraq for 12 months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
He served as an International Space Station CAPCOM for Expeditions 15 to 20 and STS-122, 123, 124, 126 and 127 and then as a technical assistant for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. Vande Hei has also served as the chief astronaut’s assistant for extravehicular activity and robotics.