OREANDA-NEWS  Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, together with American astronaut Frank Rubio, broke the record for the duration of the crew's stay on the International Space Station.

"At 20.40.11 Moscow time, the cosmonauts will exceed the achievement of Pyotr Dubrov, who from April 2021 to March 2022 made a flight under the ISS program lasting 355 days, 3 hours, 45 minutes, 21 seconds," the press service of Roscosmos told reporters earlier.

The first annual expedition to the station took place in 2015-2016. It was attended by Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko and American astronaut Scott Kelly, they spent 340 days on the ISS.

After that, Dubrov set a new record together with American Mark Vande Hai. They were delayed at the station because the "cinema crew" returned on the ship on which they arrived. Actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko, who shot footage for the film "Challenge" at the station for 12 days, took their places in the Soyuz MS-18 ship. Dubrov and Vande Hai were then lowered to the Ground by the Soyuz MS-19, on which Shipenko and Peresild arrived.

New record holders Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio arrived at the ISS on September 21, 2022 on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. It was originally planned that their expedition would last 188 days. However, after depressurization of the ship's cooling system in December 2022, it was decided to send the Soyuz MS-23 in an unmanned version and return the crew on it. The faulty Soyuz MS-22 descended on March 28 with the returned equipment, which is not as sensitive to elevated temperatures as a person.

In order to fully use the resource of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, it was decided to extend the mission of Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio for several more months.

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, who were originally part of the Soyuz MS-23 crew, but "lost" their ship to the previous crew, will also spend a year at the station. They will go to the ISS on September 15 on Soyuz MS-24 together with American Loral O'Hara. She will return in March 2024, and Kononenko, who has already flown to the ISS four times, will become the first person in the world to spend more than 1,000 days in space.