Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko on Sunday set a new absolute record for time in space, surpassing the previous record of Russian Gennady Padalka (878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds), reports EFE.

Kononenko, who has been aboard the International Space Station (ISS) since September, set a new record on Sunday at 11:30:08 Moscow time (08:30:08 GMT), Agerpres reports.

The 59-year-old Russian is completing his fifth mission on the orbital platform and will set a new record of 1,110 days when he returns to Earth on September 23.

Kononenko told the Russian state news agency TASS that in the future humanity should build a station that will be a “real space house”, bigger, more comfortable and less dependent on Earth. To this end, he recommended improving the systems of water regeneration, oxygen supply and processing of space waste.

The threshold of 1,000 days spent in space will be reached on June 5, at 20 minutes after midnight.

Kononenko, engineer of the 70th space mission and commander of the 71st, spent 736 days in space before returning to the ISS aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-24 shuttle in September 2023.

The Russian cosmonaut first flew to the ISS in April 2008 as part of the 16th mission, and since then has made six spacewalks (39 hours and 54 minutes).

For his part, Padalka retired in 2017 at the age of 58, thus falling short of the 1,000-day mark in space.

“It’s a shame. I am always saddened when a trained, experienced and motivated person with a long experience leaves the ranks of cosmonauts,” Serhiy Krikalyov, head of the pilot program of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said at the time.

On June 29, 2015, Padalka surpassed Krykalyov’s previous record of 803 days in space, setting a record of 878 days.