Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko set a world record on Sunday for total time spent in space, surpassing his fellow Russian Gennady Padalka who logged more than 878 days in orbit, Russia's space corporation said.

Mr Kononenko broke the record at 0830 GMT (7:30pm AEDT), Roscosmos said.

He is expected to reach a total of 1,000 days in space on June 5, and by late September he will have clocked...