Skip to main content

U.S. astronaut shares highs and lows of record space trip

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is returning to Earth this week after setting a new record for the longest continuous spaceflight by an American.

On March 15, Vande Hei broke the existing 340-day record set by Scott Kelly in 2016, and when he leaves the International Space Station (ISS) in the next few days, that record will have extended to 355 days, just 10 short of a full year.

Ahead of final preparations for departure alongside Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, Vande Hei has been speaking about the highs and lows of his lengthy mission in a video (below) shared on Twitter.

As @Astro_Sabot prepares to return home, he took time to share the highs and lows of his nearly one year in space. pic.twitter.com/O5rdSg3MpV

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) March 27, 2022

No doubt similar to Earth-based workers in jobs that require close collaboration with co-workers, Vande Hei said the highest points during his stay aboard the ISS were “the times when I was just hanging around, usually at mealtime with my crewmates and laughing so hard we were in tears about some comment that somebody made.”

As for lows, the astronaut, who is on his second stay aboard the ISS following a six-month stint that ended in 2018, said: “Physically, this is a challenging environment to be in. I’ve had a lot of congestion and headaches … times when you just feel very physically uncomfortable. Those are probably the low points, it colors everything you’re doing, it takes a lot more work to stay in the right frame of mind in those situations.”

Vande Hei suffered a setback in August when a medical issue prevented him from taking part in a spacewalk. As a result, the task was handed to another astronaut. While Vande Hei was able to take part in four spacewalks during his first mission four years ago, this time he stayed inside the ISS the whole time.

In a recent interview, the astronaut said that after returning home he was planning to “get outside as much as possible,” adding, “I’ve had an indoor job 24/7 for almost a year so I’m looking forward to being outside no matter what kind of weather.”

While the NASA astronaut now has the record for the longest continuous space mission by an American, the record for the longest continuous stay in space remains with Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who lived aboard the Mir space station for 437 days and 18 hours in the mid-1990s.

NASA will be livestreaming Vande Hei’s return journey this week. Here’s how to watch.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
How to watch SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts return to Earth
SpaceX's Crew-4 astronauts aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

UPDATE: NASA has delayed departure several times due to poor weather conditions at the landing site. Read on for the latest details on Crew-4's return schedule.

Read more
Watch four astronauts welcomed to the International Space Station
watch four astronauts arrive safely at the space station crew oct 2022

The International Space Station (ISS) welcomed four new astronauts on Thursday evening.

Traveling inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, SpaceX’s Crew-5 astronauts -- Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Anna Kikina of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency -- docked with the ISS shortly before 5 p.m. ET.

Read more
How to watch SpaceX’s Crew-5 astronauts arrive at space station
The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly-around of the orbiting lab that took place as Crew-2 left station on Nov. 8, 2021.

Crew-5 astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Anna Kikina of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency are on their way to the International Space Station (ISS) after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, October 5.

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

Read more