What is it like to live 1,000 days in space? A Russian cosmonaut is the first to know

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He cosmonaut Russian Oleg Kononenko today became the first man to reach 1,000 days in space, a record he broke aboard the Station International Space (EEI).

Kononenko, 59, set the new mark at 21:00:20 GMT after five missions to the orbital platform.

The long stay of the Russian on the ISS will allow scientists to know more about its physiological effects on the body, such as muscle degeneration, loss of bone mass, worsening vision and loss of balance (vertigo).

Kononenko, who will turn 60 in two weeks, is a man of record, since on February 4 he had already become the cosmonaut with the longest time in outer space with 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds, a record which until then was held by the legendary Guennadi Padalka.

The Russian, who arrived at the spacecraft in September 2023 aboard the Soyuz MS-24, will add 1,110 days – almost three years – when he returns to Earth on September 23.

In total, Kononenko, who was born in the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, has carried out five missions to the ISS (2008, 2011, 2015, 2018 and 2023).

Kononenko’s brand is almost unbeatable todaysince the next ten astronauts on the list are retired or have died.

The vast majority are Russian or born in the former Soviet Union, with the exception of the American Peggy Whitson, who occupies ninth place with 675 days, a great achievement if one considers that NASA has always limited the stay of women in the EEI due to its increased risk of suffering from cancer.

The next active cosmonaut is the also Russian Sergei Prokopiev, who has 567 days. However, it will be difficult for him to increase his personal brand, since the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has announced its intention to abandon the ISS in the coming years to focus on the construction of the new Russian space station.

As for the record for continuous stay in space, it is held by another Russian, Valeri Poliakov, who spent 437 days uninterruptedly at the Russian MIR station between 1994 and 1995.