Three astronauts returned from the ISS, two are record holders

American astronaut Tracy Dyson and two record-setting Russian cosmonauts, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Čub, returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday in a Soyuz capsule. The trio landed on the Kazakh steppe at 5 p.m. local time, dpa reports.

Before leaving, Kononjenko handed over control of the ISS to American astronaut Sunita Williams. Despite tensions on Earth, Russia and the US continue to cooperate on the ISS.

Kononjenko and Čub spent 374 days in orbit, which is the longest anyone has spent on the ISS in one piece. They broke the record on Friday, and arrived at the station on September 15, 2023.

During his stay on the ISS, Kononjenko broke another record – it was his fifth mission, so the 60-year-old became the person who spent the most time in space, the only one with over a thousand days of ‘station’ outside the Earth.

For Dyson, it was the third mission on the ISS. She has been on this space since March, which means that she has spent more than 180 days in space, writes dpa.