With the end of this mission, Kelly now has spent 520 days in space, the most among USA astronauts.
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Kelly’s last tweet from orbit Tuesday provided a cliffhanger: “The journey isn’t over”. During his year-long mission, he witnessed fascinating natural events unfold before his eyes, including the onslaught of Hurricane Patricia. He, along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, arrived in Kazakhstan at 11:26 p.m. EST. The two are now undergoing a barrage of medical tests.
Kelly will conduct functional task tests once he is back at NASA’s Johnson Space Center which will assess how the human body responds to living in microgravity for such a long time.
USA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to earth after spending nearly a year in space. Polyakov’s record still holds for humanity’s longest spaceflight.
Kelly’s 340-day space journey began on March 27, 2015. Both he and Kornienko had longed to experience nature during their mission at the International Space Station. “Follow me as I rediscover #Earth!”. Second Lady of the United States Dr. Jill Biden, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Dr. John P. Holdren, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Kelly’s identical twin brother and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly will be in Houston to welcome Kelly home.
Kelly’s closest US contender trails him by 125 days. The space station remains the springboard to NASAs next giant leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars. “The hardest part is being isolated from people on the ground who are important to you”, Kelly was quoted as saying by CNN.
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Fans looking forward to hearing Kelly’s experiences onboard the ISS will have to wait a little longer as the returning astronaut won’t be able to address members of the media until Friday afternoon. Three other space station residents will stay behind until June and wave farewell to their crewmates when they undock tonight. On this flight alone, the pair traveled 144 million miles through space – the average distance between Earth and neighbor Mars – and were exposed to cosmic radiation.
