SpaceX’s Crew Dragon aircraft Try to force yourself approaches the ISS in 2021 during the Crew-2 mission. Credit: NASA/Michael Hopkins
When SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule Try to force yourself returns to Earth this week, it will set a series of records for the most time spent in space by a crewed spacecraft.
Launched on its fifth mission in March, Try to force yourself it spent a total of 23 months in orbit, circled the Earth 11,000 times and traveled 292 million miles (470 million kilometers). She is but one of many historians Try to force yourselfThis helped satiate humanity’s thirst for exploration.
What’s in a name
Its borrowed glory originates from the sea and space ships of antiquity. The name pays homage to the British Royal Navy’s HMS Try to force yourselfcommanded by James Cook. In 1769, Cook’s crew observed the transit of Venus from Tahiti, an observation that helped accurately calculate distances between the Earth and the Sun. They also charted Australia and New Zealand and observed thousands of new species of plants and animals.
Endeavor also pays homage to the Apollo 15 Command and Service Module (CSM). Try to force yourself which brought astronauts Dave Scott, Al Worden and Jim Irwin to the Moon in 1971. While Scott and Irwin explored the Hadley Apennine Mountains, Worden remained in orbit observing the Moon with multiple scientific sensors. On the journey home, Worden took the first spacewalk into deep space, 317,000 km from Earth.
But SpaceX’s small ship owes its name to yet another Try to force yourself – the last of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet, built to replace the destroyed one Challenger. From 1992 to 2011 shuttle Try to force yourself it has flown 25 missions, logged 299 days in space, circled the Earth 4,671 times, and traveled 122 million miles (197 million km). During these flights, he assisted the Hubble Space Telescope and helped build the International Space Station (ISS).
The Crew Dragon Try to force yourself burst onto the scene in 2020, ferrying NASA’s Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS. They called it a shuttle Try to force yourselfwith which both men flew on the first missions of their respective astronaut careers.
Related: From space to museum showcase: the final mission of the shuttles
Setting records
Now, let’s fast forward to today. Try to force yourself logged four multi-month expeditions to the ISS and a 17-day private AxiomSpace research flight. It carried 18 men and women from the United States, Russia, Japan, France, Canada and Israel. A 2021 mission lasted 199 days in space, the longest ever by a crewed U.S. spacecraft at the time. And in 2023, he piloted a UAE astronaut for a six-month stay on the ISS.
Try to force yourselfThe ongoing Crew-8 flight began on March 3, when it launched from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Pad 39A with NASA astronauts Matt Dominick, Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, on board. They reached the ISS the next day for a planned six-month station increment.
But Crew-8’s tour would unexpectedly stretch to seven and a half months, experiencing more than its fair share of twists and turns. On ISS Expeditions 70, 71, and 72, they shared the station with a rotating cast of 17 other astronauts and cosmonauts from the United States, Russia, Denmark, Japan, and Belarus’ first national space traveler. They welcomed or greeted six manned and seven unmanned visiting vehicles, one of which led directly to their extended mission.
In June, Boeing’s Starliner arrived with NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams for what was supposed to be a week-long test flight. But helium leaks and reaction control system thruster illnesses kept them aboard the ISS for months, until NASA decided in August to return the Starliner to Earth empty and bring Wilmore and Williams home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in February 2025.
The resulting reshuffle of ISS operational priorities and the planned arrival and departure of additional crews in September pushed the return of Crew-8 from late August to early October. Then came Hurricane Milton, which devastated Florida with 185 mph winds, killing at least 27 people and causing more than $30 billion in damage. With Try to force yourself targeting a mission-ending crash off the coast of Florida, Crew-8’s return was again delayed.
It will now return home this week, when Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin will have spent more than 225 days in space.
And this sets a new record for the longest single flight by a manned spacecraft in history. Nineteen astronauts and cosmonauts have flown longer missions: in particular, Russian Valeri Polyakov set a world record of 437 days in space in 1994/1995, while American Frank Rubio completed a 371-day flight last autumn.
But these very long-duration space travelers often launched or landed on different ships, as visiting crews routinely left “fresh” Soyuz capsules for use by long-duration crews, then returned home on older ships to the end of their operational life. Others were launched on U.S. shuttles and landed aboard the Soyuz, or vice versa.
The longest previous mission by a crewed spacecraft was Russia’s Soyuz TMA-9, which ferried American astronaut Mike Lopez-Alegria and Russian Mikhail Tyurin to the ISS in September 2006. It returned them safely to the Earth in April 2007. Their mission lasted 215 days, orbited the Earth more than 3,440 times and flew 90 million miles (144 million km).
This week’s landing will conclude Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin’s 33-week space marathon after 3,600 orbits and 96 million miles (154 million km) flown. Epps will eclipse NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins as the most accomplished African-American space traveler. AND Try to force yourself she herself ends her fifth flight with 695 days off-planet, double the time spent in space by her now-retired namesake.
But as the longest mission of a manned spacecraft, Try to force yourselfThe record won’t last long. Next March, Soyuz MS-27 will carry Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky and NASA’s Jonny Kim to the ISS. Their mission will last until November 2025: a full eight months. As humanity prepares to explore beyond Earth’s orbit, records will continue to be made, broken, and remade in the years ahead.
