As of today, Scott Kelly now officially holds the record for the longest consecutive amount of time spent in space by an American astronaut. The previous record holder was Spanish-American astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who spent 215 consecutive days in space in 2007. Today marks 216 consecutive days for Kelly, who launched into space on March 27th of this year. His number count is only going to grow, too, as he’s slated to spend a total of 342 days on the International Space Station before coming back home.
Kelly has also spent the longest cumulative time in space out of any American astronaut: a whopping 396 days. When he is done with this mission, he’ll have racked up a total of 522 days in space over the course of four space flights. As impressive as these stats are, Russian astronauts will still have Kelly beat. The longest consecutive spaceflight was done by Valeri Polyakov, who spent nearly 438 days on the former Russian Mir space station. And Gennady Padalka, who recently stayed on the ISS with Kelly, has spent a combined 878 days in space.
via The Verge
