NASA astronaut Frank Rubio who spent an unexpected 371 days in space setting an American record made it back to Earth safely landing in a Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday with two Russian cosmonauts.

Rubio flew up with his ISS comrades Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos back on Sept. 21, 2022, and they were slated to return six months ago, but soon after docking with the International Space Station, their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft suffered damage from what officials determined to be a micometeorite strike.

It damaged the coolant system so the spacecraft was returned to Earth minus its crew, who had to wait aboard the ISS for both their replacement ride and for a new Soyuz to be prepped for their replacement crew who arrived to the ISS earlier this month.

They climbed aboard the Soyuz MS-23 early Wednesday undocking at 3:54 a.m. and touched down at 7:17 a.m. EDT on the grassy steppes of Kazakhstan.

“It’s good to be home,” Rubio said while being attended to by recovery teams, giving smiles and thumbs up signs.

Petelin was the last of the three to be carried out from the spacecraft, and looked like the return trip had taken a toll as the trio were placed in recovery chairs to regain their equilibrium.

“It was my first landing. I didn’t know what to expect,” he said according to a translator while being handed . “Today I felt it to the fullest — the loads, gravity.”

They were presented with gifts including a large watermelon given to Prokopyev and each given wooden Matryoshka nesting dolls with the trio’s likeness.

Rubio is now the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by an American. He surpassed he 355 days held by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on Sept. 11 and tacked on another couple of weeks becoming the first American to spend an entire year in space in on go.

The spaceflight was the third longest in history. The longest was 437 days spent in space in the 1990s by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov during one of his two missions to the space station Mir.

The trio will be flown from the landing site to Karaganda, Kazakhstan after which Rubio will board a NASA plane for his flight back to Houston.

Their departure from the ISS marked the end of Expedition 69 and beginning of Expedition 70 with the remaining seven crew on board from NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA and the European Space Agency.

NASA’s stuck astronaut sets American record, on way to 371 days in space

Rubio, 47, was born in Los Angeles and raised by his immigrant mother from El Salvador but moved to Miami when he was 15. He graduated from Miami Sunset High and calls South Florida home, where he met his future wife, Miami native Deborah Rubio, with whom he has four children.

He went on to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy and holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army. He earned a medical degree during his service and was flight surgeon before being chosen among the 2017 astronaut candidate class.

This was his first spaceflight, but he was among the original 18 astronauts announced to be among the potential candidates to fly Artemis missions to the moon.

So Rubio still has a ways to go to approach the American record for combined days in space  — 675 days — held by Peggy Whitson, The all-time record holder for time in space — 878 days — is held by Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka who flew to both Mir and the ISS during his career.