NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is scheduled to return to Earth today after 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where he celebrated his birthday, ate lettuce grown on in space and shared a lot of photos. With his one-year mission, Kelly has “helped us take one giant leap toward putting boots on Mars”, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.
Advertisement
Kelly and the two Russian cosmonauts who will travel with him back to Earth are saying their goodbyes to colleagues at the International Space Station.
In November 2012, NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and their worldwide partners selected two veteran spacefarers for a one-year mission aboard the global Space Station in 2015.
But his 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) haven’t been all fun and games.
By the time their capsule lands in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, the pair will have traveled 144 million miles through space, circled the world 5,440 times and experienced 10,880 orbital sunrises and sunsets. Russian Federation continues to rule, however, when it comes to long-duration spaceflight. He also said candidly, “One of my great hopes is that I go to space for a year and that I-45 construction in Clear Lake is completely done!” “Follow me as I rediscover #Earth!”
The yearlong experiment is meant to prepare NASA for a future manned mission to Mars and beyond.
Kelly and other space stationeers have been swabbing their noses, mouths, and skin, and collecting fecal samples, to see how their collection of bacteria, viruses, and other (mostly harmless) microbes changed in microgravity.
Upon his return, scientists will study how such a lengthy time in space affected Kelly.
“A year now seems longer than I thought it would be”, Kelly confided a couple weeks ago.
Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov looks out the Russian space station Mir’s window during his record-setting 438-day mission from 1994 to 1995.
Advertisement
While photography from the ISS’s cupola module was not Kelly’s primary mission, his prolific, inspiring work will likely have far-reaching implications, especially because of his choice of platform. That unique perspective should give a good side-by-side illustration of how Scott Kelly’s post-orbit health compares with what it would have been had he remained on earth.
