Rubio and two Russian crew members, Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitri Peterin, are in grave danger aboard the ISS as NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos scramble to clear their way home. That never happened. However, the incident interrupted their six-month mission schedule for him. Rubio, who will be launched into space on his first space flight with Prokopyev and Peterin in September 2022, will spend twice as much time in orbit as planned. He won’t be able to return to his Miami home for a full year.
“When it finally became a reality that I needed to stay for a full year, [it] It was difficult,” Rubio, 47, said from the ISS at a press conference on Tuesday.
Floating in zero gravity inside a compartment on the ISS, Rubio reflected on his unexpected year in space as his mission neared its end. He is scheduled to return to Earth on September 27th, but not before entering the NASA history books. Last week, Rubio broke NASA’s record for most consecutive days in space by an American. announced.NASA records set by astronauts mark vande hei In 2021-2022, there were 355 days. Rubio will have spent $371 by the time he returns home.
Would he have applied for such a long-term stay on the ISS in the first place?
“If they had asked me beforehand before I started training…I probably would have said no,” Rubio said, explaining that he didn’t want to miss an important event with his family.
“I would have had to say, ‘Thank you, but no thanks,'” Rubio said.
But Rubio added that once training for the spaceflight begins, he will give his all to the mission and resolve any mishaps that occur along the way.
“Operating the International Space Station for 23 years requires many personal and family sacrifices,” Rubio said. “But sometimes that’s what you have to do.”
As NASA prepares for future space missions, Rubio participated in several research projects while on the ISS, the agency announced. Said. He grows tomatoes outside the soil, investigate Crop production and services in space device They 3D printed knee cartilage tissue in zero gravity and donned spacesuits to install new solar arrays on the outside of the ISS.
Rubio himself became a subject of research, as NASA scientists used him and other ISS crew members. test Whether small exercise equipment could be a suitable replacement for the ISS’s treadmill on future missions to the Moon or Mars.
However, all of these projects were overshadowed a few months after the mission began. NASA and Roscosmos officials announced in January that the Soyuz, which was scheduled to bring Rubio, Prokopyev and Peterin home, had a coolant leak and was likely damaged by a micrometeorite impact.
The Soyuz was deemed unsuitable as a return ship. A replacement vessel was sent to the station in February. Ultimately, Rubio’s return date was set for September, confirming that he would break the record and spend his entire year far from his hometown.
“It’s been a roller coaster of mixed emotions,” Rubio said Tuesday.
Rubio said he was honored to break the record, but added that his task was a team effort. He praised NASA and the other astronauts who accompanied him to the ISS, and dismissed questions about celebrating the end of the mission with a commemorative patch.
“If we’re going to make a patch, they better make a lot of it,” Rubio said.
When Rubio returns to Earth, he said his body will need to readjust to handle its own weight after spending more than a year in zero gravity. It may take him months before he feels normal. But Rubio has a lot to look forward to. He said the first thing he would do when he got home was hug his wife and children. Then he’ll sit in his Miami backyard, look out at the trees, and enjoy something else he hasn’t had in more than a year in space: silence.
“You know, here we hear the constant noise of the machines that keep us alive,” Rubio said. “This is very important, but it’s probably just a continuous hum that you hear in the background. So I’m looking forward to just getting outside and enjoying the peace and quiet.”