Frank Rubio, the astronaut who holds the record for the longest stay in space during a NASA mission, had his last communication with the public on Earth on Tuesday, September 19. During this broadcast, he responded to questions from the media about his extensive stay on the International Space Station (ISS), where he has been for a year due to technical problems with his ship.
Rubio’s conference from the ISS began at 10:00 in the morning (CDMX time) and was broadcast live through NASA’s official YouTube channel.
This link represented his last communication with the public while in orbit, as he is scheduled to return to Earth on Wednesday, September 27. After her return, she will undergo a physical recovery period that could last 2 to 6 months.
Rubio, of Salvadoran descent, arrived at the ISS in September 2022 for an initial 6-month mission, scheduled until March 2023. However, due to a problem in the cooling system of the ship that transported him and that was to take him return (the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft), its return was postponed without a defined date.
Fortunately, in February of this year, the Russian space agency Roscosmos sent the Soyuz MS-23 cargo spacecraft, carrying supplies for the ISS, and it was agreed that this would be the ship that would take the American astronaut back.
Rubio will return to Earth on September 27, after having completed 371 days in low Earth orbit, which sets a record for a NASA astronaut. On his return, he will be accompanied by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev (commander) and Dmitrij Petelin (engineer).
During the call to Earth, Frank Rubio answered questions from American and Latino journalists, who showed interest in his prolonged stay and how his experience could contribute to future manned trips to the Moon and Mars. Rubio mentioned that, although the physical fatigue was notable, the psychological exhaustion was more significant than he had imagined and that maintaining contact with other people was a great help.
«Having a good team around you is an incredible help. Likewise, keep yourself busy, but not too busy, and find a balance between work and relaxation.
When asked if he would have been encouraged to participate in the mission if from the beginning it had been planned to last a year, Rubio responded that he would have rejected the offer for family reasons.
“If they had asked me in advance before starting to train because you train one or two years before your mission, I probably would have refused and that was just for the family because I knew I would miss very important events,” he declared.
«It has been a great honor to represent the Latino and Hispanic community. My message to the youth is that they must continue with work and study. “Latinos will be a large part of America in the future,” she said in one of his last interventions from space.
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