Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka sets record for spending longest time in space

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka has set a Guinness World Record for spending longest time in space with a total of 804 days as on July 2015.
With this he broke the previous record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes set by Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev (now retired) across six missions from 1998 to 2005.
Gennady Padalka’s Cosmonaut career

• Gennady Padalka was selected as a cosmonaut candidate at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in 1989.
• Currently, he is the commander of the International Space Station (ISS) which is orbiting the Earth. He is associated with ISS from 2000 and had taken part in various space expeditions.
• He was also associated with Mir, a space station of Russia which had operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001.
• He also has participated in record nine space walks till date

Padalka is going to return to Earth in September 2015. When he will return to Earth, he would have spent record total 877 days or around 2.5 years in space.
Fact: Indian-American astronaut Sunita William holds the world records for most spacewalk time for a woman astronaut (50 hours, 40 minutes) and most spacewalks by a woman astronaut (seven times).

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2015