Retired Army colonel breaks U.S. record for time spent in space

A retired Army colonel and West Point graduate marked his 521st day in space Wednesday, setting a record for American astronauts.

And as a bonus, he beat Navy to do it. Sort of.

Jeff Williams (USMA Class of '80) will wrap up his time on the International Space Station in about two weeks, set to come home with 534 cumulative days off-planet spread over four missions. Scott Kelly, a retired Navy captain, set the old record at the conclusion of his most recent mission, during which he spent nearly a year in space. Kelly returned in early March; Williams launched later that month.

"I think we would all agree that it is an honor to spend any day in space," Williams said during a June interview with NASA. "And certainly, to have accumulated that time is truly an honor for me."


He joked during an Army Times interview in March 2015 about reaching the one-year mark in space, a milestone he cracked just days after launch. 

"Sometimes I forget my own birthday, so [it] probably won't be a big deal," Williams said in a phone interview from Russia's Star City, where he was serving as a backup member for Kelly's year-in-space launch. "It is a significant milestone, I don't take that for granted."

Williams served as an Army aviator before his becoming a member of NASA's 1996 astronaut class. His first flight came in May 2000, when he served as flight engineer and lead spacewalker aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. He made two visits to the ISS (March-September 2006, September 2009-March 2010) prior to his current stay.

The mission included a Friday spacewalk to install a docking adapter to the ISS that will allow commercially launched craft to dock at the station.

The trip is scheduled to end with a Sept. 6 landing in Kazakhstan. The station won't go without a West Point representative for long: Retired Col. Shane Kimbrough (USMA '89) is set to launch from Kazakhstan on Sept. 23 as part of a three-man crew.

Williams remains well short of the all-time space-longevity record of 879 days, held by Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. Padalka returned from the ISS in September 2015 after launching with Kelly in March. He's been to space five times, including a trip to the Mir space station in 1998.