New endurance record racked up by cosmonauts

October 2, 1980

Two Russian cosmonauts, circling Earth once every 89 minutes since April 9, set a new record Wednesday for space endurance and became the most traveled spacemen in history. Air Force Lt. Col. Leonid Popov and his flight engineer, Valery Ryumin, automatically set a new manned-spaceflight endurance record when they matched the 175-day, 35-minute mark set last year by the Soyuz 32 crew. Ryumin was also aboard last year's record-setting mission. Since Feb. 25, 1979, in fact, he has been earthbound for only 236 days.