The return to Earth wrapped up a 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for Kelly and Kornienko, during which they gathered valuable biomedical data on the long duration effects of weightlessness on the human body that will be used to formulate a human mission to Mars.
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Kelly returned to bitterly cold Kazakhstan on Wednesday, along with his roommate for the past year, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko.
Kelly’s case was particularly notable as his identical twin brother remained on earth and was studied throughout to see what effects space has on the human body. Kornienko called the fresh air “an unforgettable feeling”.
“We have landing”, Russian mission control confirmed after the trio, which also included Russia’s Sergei Volkov, who was stationed at the ISS for more than five months, touched down south-east of the settlement of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan at around 4.30am GMT. During his final news conference from space last week, Kelly said NASA will put him through a battery of tests as soon as he returns to measure any changes in his health.
“Scott Kelly’s one-year mission aboard the International Space Station has helped to advance deep space exploration and America’s Journey to Mars”, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. Jill Biden will also be on hand to welcome Scott Kelly home after his historic year in space.
Kelly will fly to Houston on Wednesday for examination by NASA doctors.
While Kelly’s tweets were both entertaining and informative, they were, of course, not the reason he was sent into space.
“Scott’s the guinea pig in space and I’m the guinea pig on Earth”, Mark Kelly, who happens to be married to former Arizona congresswoman Gabriel Giffords, said on The Today Show.
Another impressive shot was one of the Milky Way which Kelly described as “old, dusty, gassy and warped”. Scott Kelly exceeded the previous record that was regarding the time spent in space by a United States astronaut on October 16, 2015.
The ISS trio leave behind Mr Kopra, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and the European Space Agency’s Tim Peake, who is a British astronaut.
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During their 340 days on the space station, Kelly and Kornienko traveled 144 million miles through space, circled the world 5,440 times and experienced 10,880 orbital sunrises and sunsets.
