Homecoming set for 2 spacemen after 1 year aloft
Astronaut Scott Kelly closed the door Tuesday to an unprecedented year in space for NASA, flying back to the planet and loved ones he left behind last March.
Kelly photographed the first five sunrises of his waking day Tuesday, posting the pictures on Twitter, before quipping, “I gotta go!” His final tweet from orbit came several hours later: The journey isn’t over.
Piloting the Soyuz capsule home for Kelly, 52, and Kornienko, 55, will be the much fresher and decade younger cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, whose space station stint lasted the typical six months.
Before committing to even longer Mars missions, NASA wants to know the limits of the human body for a year, minus gravity.