On Friday, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly crossed a threshold: The veteran astronaut and one-year International Space Station crewmember now holds the record for the longest cumulative amount of time spent in space by any NASA astronaut.
Kelly has now spent 383 days in space over the course of his four space trips, squeaking by NASA’s Mike Fincke’s record of 382 days, NASA says. And Kelly is far from done with his time in space.
When Kelly comes back to Earth in March 2016, he will have spent a total of 522 days in space over the course of his lifetime.
Kelly is a bit more than halfway through the Space Station’s first yearlong mission with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. By the time they come home, the two crewmembers will have spent 342 consecutive days in space.
Records are meant to be broken. Look fwd to one of my colleagues surpassing my end 500+ days on our #JourneyToMars! https://t.co/6SrbC8kIBP— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) October 16, 2015
This isn’t the last time Kelly will break a spaceflight record during his time in orbit, either. On Oct. 29, Kelly will have spent 216 days in space as part of the one-year mission, surpassing astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria’s record for longest single spaceflight, NASA says.
Scientists on the ground see Kelly and Kornienko’s mission as an important milestone along NASA’s journey to send people to Mars and bring them home.
The two Space Station crewmembers are participating in a series of experiments to help researchers learn more about how the body behaves during long-duration spaceflights. (A mission to and from Mars would likely take years using current propulsion.)
Although Kelly’s cumulative time in orbit is respectable, he’s still a long way off from beating the record for most time in space by any human. That spaceflight record goes to Kelly’s former crewmate cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.
Padalka broke the record for most cumulative time spent in space for any person this summer. At the conclusion of his most recent mission, Padalka had lived in space for a cumulative total of 879 days.