Roscosmos plans to increase duration of manned flights to ISS to 7-9 months

MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax) - Roscosmos has announced plans to increase the duration of manned Soyuz MS flights to the International Space Station (ISS) from six months to seven-nine months starting from 2025, which will save one spacecraft every two years, according to the corporation's statement on Roscosmos activities in 2024.

"Starting in 2025, Roscosmos is planning to increase the duration of Soyuz MS flights from six months to seven-nine months, which will save one spacecraft every two years," the statement said.

Two manned spacecraft, Soyuz MS-25 and Soyuz MS-26, and four supply spacecraft including Progress MS-26, Progress MS-27, Progress MS-28 and Progress MS-29 were launched to the ISS in 2024, it said.

"A record long ISS flight of Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, which lasted 373 days, 20 hours, 14 minutes and 28 seconds, ended on September 23. In that expedition, Oleg Kononenko set a world record for total duration of space flights - 1,110 days, 14 hours, 58 minutes and 43 seconds," Roscosmos said.