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Agence France-Presse

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka returned safely to earth with two other astronauts from the International Space Station on Saturday with the record for having spent the most time in space.
Padalka – who has spent a total of 879 days in space over five separate trips – touched ground on the barren Kazakh steppe along with Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen.
“Landing has taken place,” a spokesman for Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said. “All is well.”
Padalka led the 44th expedition at the ISS, breaking a 10-year-old record for the total number of days spent in the cosmos on June 28 when he surpassed the figure of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes achieved by Sergei Krikalev, another Russian.
His most recent mission began on March 27 when he blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome with compatriot Mikhail Kornienko and American Scott Kelly.

Mogensen, the first Dane in Space and Aimbetov, the third cosmonaut from his country, had a comparatively short stay at the ISS having entered space in the Soyuz TMA-18M on September 2 and docking two days later on September 4.
“I feel fine,” Padalka said as he sat sipping tea and nibbling on an apple surrounded by Russian space officials following his historic re-entry.
“Now you need to live on earth for a little bit,” joked Talgat Musabayev head of the Kazakh space agency Kazcosmos and a veteran of three space flights.
Padalka made four trips to ISS in total. His first ever journey into space was to visit Russia’s Mir space station in 1998.
The Mir visit was matched in duration only by his second visit to ISS in 2009, with both lasting 199 days.
He is the only person to command the ISS four times.


Russian cosmonaut lands after spending record 879 days in space over 5 trips

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka is carried away after landing in Kazakhstan. Photo: AFP

Russian Soyuz TMA-16M space capsule carrying Gennady Padalka lands in a remote area outside the town of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. Photo: AFP

Boeing shoots for stars as it unveils plant to build spacecraft for Nasa

Boeing's new Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Depicted on the wall is a rendering of the CST-100 Starliner. Photo: AP

Life on Mars: Six people begin year-long isolation experiment in Hawaii to replicate mission to Red Planet

The interior of the HI-SEAS habitat on the northern slope of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, where six people will live for the next year. Photo: AFP

The members of the crew who will spend the next year in an isolation dome in Hawaii. Photo: AFP

The barren landscape in Hawaii where the Mars experiment will take place. Photo: AFP

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