One Year Crew Returns from International Space Station

Astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have returned to Earth after spending almost one year living and working in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station.

The One Year crew alongside their Soyuz commander Sergey Volkov bid farewell to the International Space Station as the hatches between the station and the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft were closed at 9:43 p.m. GMT on March 1.

Year in Space crew members Kelly and Kornienko shortly after landing in Kazakhstan
after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station.
credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Soyuz craft departed the complex a couple of hours later when it undocked from the space station's Poisk module at 1:02 a.m. on the morning of March 2.

Following a series of orbital maneuvers, the Soyuz performed its de-orbit burn to reduce the spacecraft's speed and altitude for a fiery re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere.

Just over three hours after departing the ISS, Volkov, Kelly and Kornienko landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan at 4:26 a.m. - bringing the Year in Space mission to an end. The crew were then placed in reclining chairs next to their Soyuz before being carried a short distance to an awaiting medical tent to get the crew out of their Sokol launch and entry suits to participate in brief field tests.

These field test studies are conducted to see the effect that long term weightlessness has on the astronaut's ability to stand from a seated position, walk through obstacles and stand upright. This will help investigators further understand what future space farers will be able to do once they've landed on Mars having spent months in a weightless commute.

In a recent interview with NASA TV, Kelly was asked what he thought was the biggest accomplishment of this flight - "We absolutely accomplished an incredible amount of work both on the US Operational Segment and on the Russian Segment."

"Our time here has demonstrated not only the capability for us to stay in space for a long time and to do well, but also the capability of ground teams to support us, the sytsems that keep us alive and the resuspply in a way that is forward thinking towards a potential flight to Mars. We've collected a lot of data during our time here and that data is something that's going to be analysed later.. but I think it's been a great success and a real privilege to part of it."

Over the past 340 days, Kelly and Kornienko:

• Completed 5,440 orbits of the Earth.
• Ran over 640 miles on the station's treadmill.
• Travelled 143,846,525 miles - roughly the distance from Earth to Mars. A return journey to the red planet is expected to last 500 days or longer.
• Conducted over 400 scientific experiments during the course of their stint aboard the complex.

Coming Home: Kelly, Volkov and Kornienko tightly packed inside their Soyuz
credit: NASA

"Misha and I are only one data point. You need a lot more numbers to draw specific conclusions but I'm hoping what we find is a lot of information that will help us eventually continue on our path toward Mars."

Another unique investigation conducted over the past year is the Twins Study. Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly's identical twin has served as the control subject for his brother on orbit. This study hopes to investigate if the effect of long-duration spaceflight has any difference on the body on a genetic level.

Today's landing brings to an end the fourth spaceflight for Scott Kelly who has now logged 520 days in space and sets the record for the most time in space for an American. Mikhail Kornienko now logs 516 across two space station expeditions. Soyuz commander Sergey Volkov returns to Earth with 548 days in space across three long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station.

The departure of the Soyuz marked the official beginning of Expedition 47 after Kelly handed over the reigns of the orbiting laboratory to Tim Kopra of NASA. Kopra remains aboard the station with cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and ESA astronaut Tim Peake.

The trio will be joined on March 19 when the Soyuz TMA-20M docks to the vacant docking port on Poisk - bringing Alexei Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams to the station for a six month mission.

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Cygnus Cargo Craft Departs International Space Station

Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo ship has departed the International Space Station after a successful 72 day mission to resupply the orbiting laboratory.

Having been unberthed from the Unity Module of the complex earlier in the day, Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Tim Kopra used the station's 57-foot robotic arm to release the unmanned Cygnus at 12:26 p.m. GMT as the two vehicles flew 400 kilometers over Bolivia. This positioned Cygnus for a fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday.

Cygnus departs the International Space Station(File photo)
credit: NASA

On its fourth mission to resupply the space station, the vehicle nicknamed "S.S. Deke Slayton II" launched atop an Atlas V rocket carrying over 3,500 kilograms of cargo from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral in Florida on December 6.

Among the cargo which served the Expedition 45/46 crews was a new life sciences facility and a micro-satellite deployer, as well as food and other crew provisions.

Today's departure of Deke Slayton II also marks the beginning of a busy period of traffic from visiting vehicles to and from the station. 

On March 1 the year-long mission to the ISS conducted by Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will come to an end as the pair undock their Soyuz TMA-18M from the Poisk module on the Russian segment of the International Space Station alongside Sergey Volkov.

Kelly and Kornienko have been living aboard the station since their arrival on March 28 2015. By the time they return to Earth they will have spent 340 days in space and traveled over 140 million miles.

The departure of Kelly, Kornienko and Volkov will clear the way for the arrival of the next Soyuz to bring three new crew members to the International Space Station. Cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka, Alexey Ovchinin and astronaut Jeff Williams will dock their Soyuz TMA-20M to the vacant docking port on Poisk on March 19. This will be followed just three days later by the launch of the next Cygnus vehicle on it's fifth flight to the station.

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Astronauts Complete Shortened Spacewalk to Replace Faulty Power Unit

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station have completed an abbreviated four hour, forty three minute-long spacewalk to replace a faulty power unit on the exterior of the International Space Station.

On their 32nd day in space, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Tim Peake of the European Space Agency began their Extra-Vehicular Activity(EVA) from the U.S. Quest airlock at 12:48 p.m. GMT. while the ISS was flying 250 miles over the Southern Indian Ocean.

Tim Peake smiles for the camera as he became Britain's first astronaut
to walk in space. credit: NASA

They quickly translated some 200 feet to the S6 truss on the starboard edge of the space station to remove a faulty power regulator known as a Sequential Shunt Unit(SSU) that failed on November 13 2015.

Working in tandem, the pair removed the old Sequential Shunt Unit while the station was in orbital night time. This removed the possibility of sparking as no power was being generated by the station's solar arrays at this time. Kopra and Peake installed a new SSU a short while later. The new unit is nicknamed "Dusty" as it has been aboard the complex since 1999.

Aboard the International Space Station are eight power channels along which solar power generated by the station's eight solar arrays flows to operate on board systems. The purpose of the SSU is to regulate power output of the solar arrays to 160 volts. The ISS can operate with only seven channels in operation, but if another were to fail some on board systems would need to be shut down.

With the primary task of the Extra-Vehicular Activity(EVA) complete, the spacewalking duo focused their attention on routing a series of cables that will be used to prepare the orbiting laboratory for the upcoming installation of International Docking Adapters on Pressurised Mating Adapters that will serve as docking ports for future commercial crew and resupply vehicles visiting the International Space Station.

However shortly after 4 p.m. lead spacewalker Kopra soon noticed that a volume of cold water had found its way into his helmet. He also noted that his shoulders and wrists were also wet as a result of the leak.

The drinking water astronauts use to keep hydrated is kept at ambient temperature, indicating that the water stemmed from a leaking cooling garment inside his spacesuit.

Although the spacewalkers were in no immediate danger, lead Flight Director Royce Renfrew made the decision to terminate the EVA early and bring Kopra and Peake back inside.
Renfrew later spoke to NASA Public Affairs Officer Rob Navias on his decision which you can watch here.

"We're in a terminate case," radioed NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman in Mission Control, relaying Renfrew's decision. "We want you to start heading back to the airlock."

This follows a similar incident in July 2013 in which ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet filled with a large volume of water, leading to the immediate abort of that particular spacewalk.

This was the 192nd spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance. Today also marks the first time a British citizen has conducted an EVA with Tim Peake making the first spacewalk of his career. Today's excursion marks the third spacewalk for Tim Kopra.