On this day in space! June 6, 1995: Astronaut Norm Thagard breaks space endurance record

News
By last updated

On June 6, 1995, American astronaut Norman Thagard broke NASA's space endurance record at the time of 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes while aboard the Russian space station Mir.

On June 6, 1995, American astronaut Norman Thagard broke NASA's space endurance record at the time of 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes while aboard the Russian space station Mir.

Thagard, a veteran of four shuttle flights, was considered the first American cosmonaut and the first American to ride to space aboard a Russian vehicle.

Astronaut Norman E. Thagard floats in the Space Shuttle Atlantis holding the flight suit he wore on Russia's Mir Space Station during the Mir-18 mission in 1995. This photo was taken on July 7, 1995, the last day of his four-month mission. (Image credit: NASA)

He launched aboard a Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft to the Russian Mir-18 on March 18, 1995, and landed on NASA's shuttle Atlantis on July 7th of that year. He ultimately spent 115 days in space on the flight.

The current single-mission space endurance record is held by Valery Polyakov at 437.7 days.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.