NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore spent 286 consecutive days in space before returning to Earth on March 18. How does that compare to spaceflight records? (Image credit: NASA/Keegan Barber)
On March 18, 2025, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, ending their unexpected nine-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
When the two astronauts arrived at the ISS aboard Boeing's experimental Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024, their stay in orbit was planned to last just eight days. However, due to persistent leaks and malfunctions aboard the Starliner, the Boeing spacecraft was eventually returned to Earth without a crew, leaving Williams and Wilmore stranded on the ISS for more than nine months until a replacement capsule could be arranged.
When the pair finally returned home in March, the astronauts had spent 286 consecutive days in space. While that may seem like an impressive amount of time, it's routine for astronauts and hardly a new record.
On average, astronauts stay aboard the ISS for about six months, where they conduct experiments and maintain the station before returning to Earth, according to Live Science partner site Space.com. However, missions can last significantly longer for a variety of reasons, including long-term experiments and unforeseen circumstances.
Who has spent the longest time in space?
The record for the most days of continuous stay in space among Americans belongs to astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days aboard the ISS from September 2022 to September 2023.
Rubio was originally scheduled to return home in March 2023, but his time in space was more than doubled after a small meteoroid, or piece of space debris, damaged the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that was scheduled to return him to Earth in December 2022. This resulted in severe damage. Rubio, along with Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, had to wait another six months in space before a replacement Soyuz capsule arrived to bring them home.
Although Prokopyev and Petelin also spent 371 consecutive days in space, they did not break any Russian records. Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who holds the record for the most consecutive days spent in space by a human, spent 437 days, or more than 14 months, aboard the now-defunct Russian space station Mir from January 1994 to March 1995. Polyakov agreed to the mission as part of a study into the effects of long-term spaceflight on human health.
Other notable long-term stays in space include the 328 days spent by American astronaut Christina Koch aboard the ISS from March 2019 to February 2020 (the longest single spaceflight by a woman), and the 340 days spent in space by American astronaut Scott Kelly from March 2015 to March 2016.
How does space affect the human body?
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