Astronaut Frank Rubio returns to Earth holding a record for NASA and Latin America

Salvadoran-American astronaut Frank Rubio returned today aboard the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft to Earth after 371 days in space, making him the NASA astronaut with the most continuous days in space and the first Latin American to achieve this feat.

Rubio (47 years old) landed in the Russian landing capsule from the International Space Station at 11:17 GMT in the Kazakh steppes southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, accompanied by astronauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin.

After the second Soyuz spacecraft left, the NASA astronaut said, giving a thumbs up and smiling all the while, “It’s good to be home,” meaning back to Earth.

On the 19th, in his last call from the International Space Station, a NASA astronaut declared this day to be a “unique milestone in American spaceflight.”

Rubio, the first astronaut of Salvadoran descent to travel to space and the twelfth Hispanic to do so, returned to Earth after being on board the International Space Station with four different crews and two records to his credit.

He is the NASA astronaut in Latin America with the largest number of continuous days in space after surpassing Mark Vande Heij on September 11 with 355 consecutive days on the International Space Station.

Moreover, Rubio, who was born in Los Angeles but whose mother, Mirna Argueta, still lives in El Salvador, is the first Latin American to achieve this number and the number of days accumulated in space, after completing his first mission on board the spacecraft. Space platform. A Spanish citizen proud of his community

He said that it is a great honor to represent Latin America, and that “the message to young people is to continue working and studying, and that anything is possible.” It is important for our community to move forward and continue to improve our country. I believe that Latinos will be a big part of America in the future,” he stressed in his latest remarks from space on the 19th.

The Spanish astronaut admitted that if he had known before he began his training for this mission that he would remain on the International Space Station for more than a year, he would most likely have rejected NASA’s offer, mainly because he missed important family events during his year in space. He wiped out space.

Rubio thanked his wife Deborah and four teenage children for their support, as their “resilience and strength” helped him overcome this entire task, for which he had been preparing for five years.