Kelly and Kornienko have been aboard the space station for 340 days, about twice as long as previous crews. Kelly pumped his fist after emerging from the capsule and then gave a thumbs up.
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But “there’s nothing quite like that first breath of fresh air”, Hadfield said. “I’ve no idea why you guys are so bundled up”, NASA TV reported him as saying as he sat upright in a chair on the steppe in temperatures just below zero.
Here’s a fun fact about long-duration space flight: There’s no shower on board the International Space Station. Kelly and Kornienko have been using different tools in space in an attempt to attenuate these changes.
Before leaving the ISS, Cdr Kelly posted a final picture from the craft on Twitter, with the message: “Rise and shine!”
The men, accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, strapped themselves inside a Russian Soyuz capsule and departed about noon (AEDT) on Wednesday. The three space travelers were immediately taken to a science and medical tent to begin examinations and tests. This in turn can help NASA determine countermeasures for future space exploration mission like a Mars exploration mission which is estimated to take around 2-3 years. He will be monitored so that NASA scientists can see the full extent of the effects of space on the human body. “Physically, I feel very good”. But still record-smashing for NASA. However, the world record goes to Russian cosmonaut who stayed there for 438 days. This is a USA record. The mission was in cooperation between NASA and Russian space administration.
NASA’s agency wide goal is to send humans on a “Journey to Mars” during the 2030s and the “1 Year Crew” marked a concrete step toward achieving that goal. Radiation will be a top challenge, along with the body and mind’s durability on what will be a 2½-year journey round trip.
The choice of the pioneering Kelly turned out to be a bonanza.
“Welcome back to Earth, @StationCDRKelly!”.
Kelly and Kornienko were due to split up later Wednesday.
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NASA announced the successful landing earlier today together with Russian Mission Control. Kornienko will move to his home in Star City near Moscow to reunite with his wife, daughter and grandson. “If we can dream it”, he said from space, “we can do it if we really want to”. Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, who both spent most of the past year in space, landed at 11:26 p.m. ET in Kazakhstan.
