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HOUSTON – NASA has a newborn voyage champion and his study is Mike Fincke.

Fincke, an traveler flying on the shuttle Endeavour's test mission, poor NASA's all-time achievement for the most instance spent in expanse by an American New weekday (May 27) when he passed the 377-day mark, and he is upbringing the forbid higher with every added minute he spends in orbit.

By the instance Endeavour lands on June 1, Fincke will hit spent 382 life in itinerary on threesome expanse missions. [Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records]

NASA's preceding achievement bearer for the most life in expanse is the agency's honcho traveler Peggy Whitson, who spent 376 days, 17 hours and 22 minutes in itinerary during digit six-month missions to the International Space Station. Fincke, same Whitson, has also served digit long-duration stints on the send and is today on this ordinal trip: the 16-day assignment of Endeavour's STS-134 flight.

"It's sure an take to get a quantity to fly up in space, and especially for daylong periods of time," Fincke told reporters in interviews weekday (May 26).

NASA's newborn expanse champ

Fincke, 44, is an Air Force colonel who connected NASA's traveler ranks in 1996. His newborn cumulative voyage achievement is the equal of spending digit year and 12 life zooming most 220 miles (354 kilometers) above the Earth at most 17,500 mph (28,164 kph). [Last Chance to See Shuttle Endeavour in Night Sky]

The all-time achievement for most instance spent in expanse is still held by Slavonic cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who assembled most 804 life in expanse over the instruction of sextet spaceflights. Krikalev's achievement is equal to more than digit eld and digit months orbiting in the cosmos.

Fincke, who hails from Emsworth, Penn., has served on digit different International Space Station campaign crews, each instance actuation in a Russian-built Soyuz satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. [Photos: Shuttle Endeavour's Final Mission ]

Fincke first launched to the send on Apr 2004 as conception of the station's Expedition 9 crew. He spent sextet months on the orbiting outpost and performed quaternary spacewalks before construction in Kazakhstan in Oct 2004.

Fincke returned to the expanse send during the Expedition 18 mission, which launched in Oct 2008. On that mission, Fincke served as send commander. He returned to Earth in Apr 2009 alongside digit crewmates.

NASA's most prolific spaceflyer

Yet, with more than a year of voyage undergo low his belt, the start of Endeavour on its STS-134 assignment was the first instance Fincke rocketed into itinerary aboard digit of NASA's expanse shuttles. [Shuttle Endeavour's Final Launch Photos]

"I’ve been here at NASA for 14 years. I spent a year in space, but I’ve never launched on, or landed on, a expanse shuttle before, so it was with enthusiastic assail and feeling that I got assigned to STS-134, commanded by Mark Kelly, and got a really enthusiastic crew," Fincke said in a preflight interview.

Endeavour's assignment is NASA's second-to-last shuttle grace before the 30-year-old information is closed downbound and the orbiter are old to museums. Endeavour delivered a $2 1000000000 particle physics research to the expanse station, among another supplies, on this flight.

A few life after Endeavour blamed soured from President Space Center in Florida on May 16 to begin its test assignment before existence old later this year along with the rest NASA's fleet, Fincke summed up the undergo from the expanse station.

"It was worth the wait," he said in a recording that ventilated during the day's highlights on NASA TV.

Still, Fincke expects that as human expedition and voyage move into the future, these records defence to be broken, especially the missions that intend to near boost discover into the solar system.

"Any records that are event today – modify the large on the Slavonic lateral of 804 life – that's every feat to be daylong irrecoverable when humans really start to explore the solar system, especially with some of the newborn vehicles that NASA is feat to become up with," Fincke said. "Six months at a instance seems to be what seems to be employed today for the expanse station. Anything individual than that is feat to be a little bit tougher, but I think we crapper live up here relatively indefinitely. A year assignment is not discover of the discourse aboard the expanse station. It would be a aggregation more engrossing to pay a year feat to Mars, however."

You crapper study SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Visit SPACE.com for complete news of Endeavour's test assignment STS-134 or study us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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