NASA astronaut Frank Rubio inside the cupola, the International Space Station’s “window to the world.” (Frank Rubio/NASA)

It was six months overdue, but NASA astronaut and Army Lt. Col. Frank Rubio’s marathon 371-day mission in space — which set the record for the longest continuous spaceflight on record by an American — finally came to an end Wednesday morning as Rubio’s Soyuz spacecraft deployed its parachute and settled gently on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

“It’s good to be home,” Rubio said, from a reclining chair where he rested for a few minutes to regain his equilibrium after being carried out the capsule. Draped in a blanket, the NASA astronaut smiled, wiped his forehead and said he felt good.

He landed exactly on schedule at 7.17 a.m. Eastern Time in a “bullseye touchdown,” according to NASA’s commentator — following a roughly 15-minute parachute-assisted descent.

After changing out of his space suit, Rubio will be transported by helicopter to the nearby Kazakh city of Karaganda — before boarding a NASA flight back to Houston.

During the final minutes of Rubio’s 371-day stay at the International Space Station, a NASA live feed camera showed Rubio shaking hands and hugging friends, occasionally smiling and looking at his wristwatch. Rubio’s final act at the space center was to pose for some last-minute photos before entering the Soyuz MS-23 vehicle that was to take him home.

Hatches of the spacecraft closed at 00:41 a.m. Wednesday, according to NASA.

For an anxious few months, Rubio’s return had been in doubt. The spacecraft that he clambered into was a hasty replacement for the Soyuz that launched to bring him and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, to the International Space Station on Sept.

The article is not finished. Click on the next page to continue.