Houston, I'm Home-NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly Returns to Earth

BENGALURU: NASA astronaut and Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly, has touched down on Earth after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Kelly along with fellow Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency) astronauts, Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov embarked on their return journey from ISS in the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft at 8:02 p.m. EST on Tuesday. The gum-drop shaped Soyuz capsule landed successfully at 11:56 p.m. EST in Dzhezkazgan, southeast of Kazakhstan.

The International Space Station is now being operated by the crew of Expedition 47 that has NASA astronaut Tim Kopra in command, along with Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) and Yuri Malenchenko of Roscosmos. Three new crew members, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, who are scheduled to arrive on March 18, will take over the operation of the ISS in two weeks.

Scott Kelly was launched on March 27, 2015 as part of Expedition 46, with Roscosmos astronauts Gennady Padalka and Kornienko. Kelly’s 340 days stay on board the ISS set two records– first for the most consecutive days spent in space by an American; and for the most days spent cumulatively among US astronauts, at 520, which he accumulated across two flights. The record of spending most days in space belongs to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who has spent a total of 879 days. However, Kelly’s mission was not about breaking records, rather a science experiment for NASA to prepare for much longer missions like the Mars voyage that will take up to 500 days in space.

“Scott Kelly’s one-year mission aboard the International Space Station has helped to advance deep space exploration and America’s Journey to Mars,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Scott has become the first American astronaut to spend a year in space, and in so doing, helped us take one giant leap toward putting boots on Mars.”

Space and lack of gravity can take a toll on your body, especially your bones and muscles, while there can be other issues related to insomnia and decline in eyesight too. NASA is using Kelly’s twin brother Mark Kelly, a former astronaut himself, as a point of comparison for studying the effects of long duration spaceflight on human body, due to weightlessness, isolation, radiation and stress. Kelly’s year long endeavor also saw him undertake several other missions including growing the first space vegetable and flower.

Kelly witnessed 10,944 sunsets and sunrises, and travelled about 144 million miles through space aboard the ISS. Yet, Kelly told reporters in his last press conference from space that he can easily spend another 100 days on space. He said, “The thing I like most about flying in space is not the view, or floating, or the other stuff that’s fun about this–riding the rocket and coming back to earth, but doing something I feel very strongly about, very passionately about.”

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