NASA astronaut and twitpic enthusiast Scott Kelly has spent 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) — and March 1 marks his last aboard. The crew team leader will begin his descent back to Earth today, with a record-breaking accomplishment and maybe a claim to the title "Champion of Liquid Ping Pong in Space."
Kelly is set to make his return Earth-bound flight with fellow cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov on their Russian Soyuz spacecraft at roughly 8:05 p.m. EST. The flight is expected to take only a few hours to complete and is expected to land in Kazakhstan at 11:25 p.m. ET. Both Kornienko and Kelly have spent roughly a year in space.
Yesterday, Kelly handed over ISS keys to his colleague and fellow NASA member Tim Kopra, who will serve as acting captain from now on. The event was broadcasted from ISS by NASA, during which Kopra stated his admiration for Kelly, whom he had only known for two and a half months prior.
"Thank you [Scott] for your leadership," remarked the new captain. "You've been such a great role model to us in every aspect: as a crew member, and as a space station commander."
"A really smart person said to me one time, 'team work makes the dream work in space flight,'" Kelly said as he gave the keys over the (space) kingdom to Kopra.
"Space flight is the biggest team sport there is, and it's incredibly important that we all work together to make what is seemingly impossible, possible," he added.
After Kelly's landing, the astronaut will then begin his acclimation back to Earth (read: gravity) and subsequent rehabilitation; simultaneously, NASA scientists and researchers will also study the effects of living in space for a year (twice as long as the normal tenure) with help from blood, urine and other bodily samples Scott collected while up in the air. Research teams will then compare his stats to that of his twin brother, Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut who stayed bellow, and hopefully find some useful stuff to keep in mind for future long-term missions.
if you're interested in watching the historic landing happen in real-time, NASA is planning on streaming it tonight on NASA TV. From all of us here at Tech Times: good luck, Scott!
Check out this video from the Verge on how Scott Kelly's body has been altered from his year of ISS living in the clip below.
