Russian gets to 879 days in space

Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, left, and Mikhail Korniyenko. Photo / AP

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka - who has spent more time in space than anyone else - has returned safely to Earth from the International Space Station with two other astronauts.

Padalka - who has spent a total of 879 days in space over five separate trips - touched down on the barren Kazakh Steppe yesterday along with Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen.

Padalka led the 44th expedition at the ISS, breaking a 10-year-old record for the total number of days spent in the cosmos on June 28 when he surpassed the figure of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes achieved by Sergei Krikalev, another Russian.

His most recent mission began on March 27 when he blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome with compatriot Mikhail Korniyenko and American Scott Kelly.

Mogensen, the first Dane in space and Aimbetov, the third cosmonaut from his country, had a comparatively short stay at the ISS, having entered space on September 2 and docking two days later on September 4.

Russia put the brakes on all space travel for almost three months after the failure of the unmanned Progress freighter in late April.

The doomed ship lost contact with Earth and burned up in the atmosphere, forcing a group of astronauts to spend an extra month on the ISS.

In May, another Russian spacecraft, a Proton-M rocket carrying a Mexican satellite, malfunctioned and crashed in Siberia soon after its launch.

The ISS has been orbiting Earth at roughly 28,000km/h since 1998.

- AAP