Russia’s Oleg Kononenko has set a world record for the most amount of time spent in space.
The cosmonaut clocked up a total of 878 days and 12 hours outside the Earth’s atmosphere, or almost two and a half years.
He accomplished the feat while aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a huge spacecraft that sits about 250 miles above our planet, on the morning of February 4.
However, his time on the ISS is not yet over. Mr Kononenko is widely expected to become the first person to reach 1,000 days in space on June 5.
"I fly into space to do what I love, not to set records. I've dreamt of and aspired to become a cosmonaut since I was a child,” he told Russian news agency TASS.
"That interest — the opportunity to fly into space, to live and work in orbit — motivates me to continue flying.”
Mr Kononenko’s milestone sees him overtake the previous record holder, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. He spent 878 days, 11 hours and 29 minutes in space.
Although astronauts and cosmonauts essentially do the same thing, the difference between the two is who they were trained by. While astronauts are taught by Nasa and other mainly western space agencies, cosmonauts are coached by the Russian space agency.
Mr Kononenko has visited the ISS five times and completed several spacewalks. He first ventured to the celestial spacecraft as the first flight engineer on Expedition 17 in 2008.
His current trip to the ISS began on September 15 last year, when he launched alongside Nasa astronaut Loral O'Hara and fellow cosmonaut Nikolai Chub.
Mr Kononenko said regular exercise meant he did not feel “deprived or isolated” in space. However, it was upon his return to Earth that he realised the moments he had missed out on.
“For hundreds of days in my absence, the children have been growing up without a papa. No one will return this time to me," he said.
