Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko is expected to set a world record on Sunday for the total duration of a space flight of nearly 2-1/2 years, Russian news agencies reported.

As expected, at 11:30:08 Moscow time, the 59-year-old Kononenko will surpass compatriot Gennady Padalka, whose previous five space flights took a total of 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds. Second. He retired in 2017, according to state news agency TASS.

Kononenko is the commander of the Roscosmos cosmonaut corps and is on his fifth space flight. After the expedition, which is scheduled to be completed on September 23, Kononenko will remain in space for 1,110 days.

At the age of 34, Kononenko began training as part of a group of astronauts selected for the International Space Station (ISS) program, according to the European Space Agency’s website.

He made his first spaceflight on April 8, 2008, as part of the 17th major expedition to the International Space Station, and returned to Earth on October 24, 2008, according to Interfax.

The International Space Station is one of the few international projects in which the United States and Russia still cooperate closely. In December last year, Roscosmos said that its crossover flight program with NASA to the International Space Station had been extended to 2025.

Relations between the two countries have broken down in other areas since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, and Washington has responded by sending weapons to Kiev and imposing successive rounds of sanctions on Moscow.

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