NASA astronaut is setting new single-flight duration record
CBSN
Two NASA astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station early Tuesday, continuing ongoing work to upgrade the lab's aging solar power system. Looking on from inside the lab was Mark Vande Hei, completing his 340th day in space on the way to a new single-flight record for a U.S. astronaut.
Retired astronaut Scott Kelly logged 340 days and eight hours in orbit during a nearly year-long station stay in 2015-16, easily setting a record for the longest single flight by a NASA astronaut. Vande Hei was on track to move past Kelly's mark Tuesday and is expected to log a total off 355 days off planet by the time he returns to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on March 30.
"I think it's great," Kelly told CBS News in a recent phone interview. "What's the saying, records are made to be broken? And that means we're doing things better than we did it before. So yeah, congratulations to him."
