Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is preparing to begin his long-anticipated Year In Space mission, as he and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka are scheduled to depart for the International Space Station on at 3:42pm Eastern on Friday afternoon.
Kelly and Kornienko will each remain on the orbiting research facility until March 2016, and each of them will set records during the mission, according to CNN.com reports. But the main reason for the study is to learn what kind of impact spending such an extended period of time in space will have on a person’s anatomy, physiology and mental wellbeing.
Breaking records
The 51-year-old Kelly will remain on the ISS for nearly twice as long as any previous American astronaut, breaking the former record held by NASA’s Michael Lopez-Alegria, who spent seven months on the station from September 18, 2006, to April 21, 2007.
He will also spend 342 days off the planet during the mission, and when added to his previous service, his combined 522 days in space will also be a US record, shattering Mike Fincke’s old record of 381 days, 15 hours and 11 minutes combined time spent in space, CNN said.
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Padalka, on the other hand, will set a new world record for most total time in space for a human. He has already logged over 710 days in space, including stays on Russia’s Mir space station and three previous stints on the International Space Station, the website added.
#Twinning
The journey will also allow NASA to study how identical twins will change over the course of a year spent in to vastly different environments. Scott’s brother, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, will be monitored by researchers on Earth while his twin is in space, and both will undergo a series of experiments that include blood tests and both physical and psychological exams.
[STORY: ISS adding more spaceship parking]
As the US space agency said on Thursday, those tests “will track any degeneration or evolution that occurs in the human body from extended exposure to a zero-gravity environment.” The data will be shared between both NASA and Roscosmos in what is being called “an important step in reducing cost and improving efficiency for all future space station research.”
In an interview with ABC News, Scott admitted that he expected it would be difficult. In his previous six-month stint on the space station, he said that he started feeling “like I have accomplished everything I need to,” that there was “a lot of stuff” he missed on Earth, and that he was ready to go home at approximately the four-month mark. He added that he hoped that feeling would not hit until about “two-thirds of the way into the mission” this time around.
NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly is seen inside a Soyuz simulator at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC), Wednesday, Mar. 4, 2105 in Star City, Russia. (Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Dr. Stevan Gilmore, who is heading up the year-in-space research is being led by flight surgeon, told ABC that he was well aware how tough living in microgravity is on a person’s body. But the information gained from the study will be essential to NASA as they move forward to a future manned mission to Mars – a mission that will require three years of space travel, round trip.
“We want to understand, is there anything that pops up between the six- and twelve-month duration so that we know if there are any large barriers out there for new missions,” Dr. Gilmore said.
In a statement, Dr. Michael Barratt, program manager for NASA’s Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, added that the mission “will build on the rich experience of long-duration flights, including four flights of a year or more conducted by our Russian colleagues on the Mir station.”
“We have progressed considerably in our understanding of the human physiology in space and in countermeasures to preserve bone, muscle and fitness since then,” he continued. “The space station program provides us a robust framework for international collaboration that enables us to realize tremendous returns from such an experience.”
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