science · 29 December 1987 · 37 years ago
In 1987, cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko return to Earth, ending his record 326-day space flight orbiting Earth in the Mir space station. The Soyuz spacecraft landed at a snow-covered site in Kazakhstan. His stay in space broke the previous Soviet record of 237 days. For comparison, the U.S. space endurance record is 87 days. Romanenko rocketed into orbit 6 Feb 1987 with flight engineer Alexander Laveikin who suffered heart problems five months later and was replaced with Alexander Alexandrov. They conducted 1,000 experiments in biology, medicine, materials processing and geology. Romanenko and Alexandrov used the giant Kvant (Quantum) astrophysics laboratory attached to the Mir to collect data from remote parts of the solar system. In a total of 3 space missions he accumulated 430.76 days in space.
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