Nasa astronaut returns to Earth after spending record-breaking stint in space

Frank Rubio only signed up for 180-day trip but ended up spending 371 days in orbit

Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio has finally returned to Earth after spending a record-breaking time in space.

Rubio, who had only signed up for a six-month trip, was forced to stay in orbit for 371 days after a coolant leak was found in his Russian ride to the International Space Station.

In doing so he set a new record for the longest period a US astronaut has spent in space and became the first American to spend a whole calendar year there.

Rubio and his two Russian colleagues, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, landed in Kazakhstan aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-23 capsule on Wednesday.

Rubio, who has four children, recently told CNN that if he knew he was going to be on such a long mission, he would have “probably declined” the opportunity.

“And that’s only because of family things that were going on this past year,” he said.

“If I had known that I would have had to miss those very important events, I just would have had to say, ‘thank you, but no thank you.’”

Frank Rubio is helped out of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft minutes after he and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (AP)

He travelled into space for the first time on a Russian spacecraft as part of a ride-sharing agreement between Nasa and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

Rubio and his Russian colleagues launched into space on 21 September 2022 and Russia had to rush up a replacement capsule after the original was damaged by space junk.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft lands near Zhezkazgan (AP)

“Your dedication is truly out of this world, Frank!” Nasa chief Bill Nelson said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Russia holds the world record of 437 days, set in the mid-1990s.