It's always interesting when somebody is able to break a record. Perhaps we have tried to do so in the past and maybe have even been successful, but some records are not reachable by everyone.

That includes the record that Frank Rubio, a NASA astronaut, is about to set. He has been in outer space on a mission for longer than anyone in history.

Photo: Flickr/U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Comma License: CC BY 2.0

Back in 2022, Mark Vande Hei set the previous record of 355 days, according to CBS News. Prior to that, Scott Kelly was on a 340-day mission, but that stopped in 2016.

The funny thing is, according to CNN, Rubio should not be breaking the record. He was supposed to come back to Earth this spring, but the spacecraft experienced a coolant leak in December. The craft ended up coming back to Earth empty.

Photo: Flickr/Global Panorama License: CC BY-SA 2.0

They launched a replacement spacecraft, which docked with the space station on February 23. Rubio should now come back to Earth on September 27 or perhaps later but not before he hits 371 days in space.

This is a record for the United States, but it is not a world record. That was set by Valeri Polyakov, a Russian cosmonaut, when he spent 437 days in space on Russia's Mir space station, according to Astronomy.com. That was back in 1994-1995.

Photo: Flickr/NASA Johnson

Rubio is on the international space station thanks to an agreement between the United States and Russia.

The war in Ukraine has strained the relationship, but it is still important for the ongoing success of the international space station.