WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and
their international partners have selected two veteran spacefarers
for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station in
2015. This mission will include collecting scientific data
important to future human exploration of our solar system. NASA has
selected Scott Kelly and Roscosmos
has chosen Mikhail Kornienko.
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Kelly and Kornienko will launch aboard a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in spring 2015 and will land in
Kazakhstan in spring 2016. Kelly
and Kornienko already have a connection; Kelly was a backup crew
member for the station's Expedition 23/24 crews, where Kornienko
served as a flight engineer.
The goal of their yearlong expedition aboard the orbiting
laboratory is to understand better how the human body reacts and
adapts to the harsh environment of space. Data from the 12-month
expedition will help inform current assessments of crew performance
and health and will determine better and validate countermeasures
to reduce the risks associated with future exploration as NASA
plans for missions around the moon, an asteroid and ultimately
Mars.
"Congratulations to Scott and Mikhail on their selection for
this important mission," said William
Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration
and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Their skills and previous
experience aboard the space station align with the mission's
requirements. The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how
we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding
the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future
missions beyond low-Earth orbit."
"Selection of the candidate for the one year mission was
thorough and difficult due to the number of suitable candidates
from the Cosmonaut corps," said head of Russian Federal Space
Agency, Vladimir Popovkin. "We have
chosen the most responsible, skilled and enthusiastic crew members
to expand space exploration, and we have full confidence in
them."
Kelly, a captain in the U.S. Navy,
is from Orange, N.J. He has
degrees from the State University of New York
Maritime College and the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville. He served as a pilot on space shuttle
mission STS-103 in 1999, commander on STS-118 in 2007, flight
engineer on the International Space Station Expedition 25 in 2010
and commander of Expedition 26 in 2011. Kelly has logged more than
180 days in space.
Kornienko is from the Syzran, Kuibyshev region of Russia. He is a former paratrooper officer and
graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute as a specialist in
airborne systems. He has worked in the space industry since 1986
when he worked at Rocket and Space Corporation-Energia as a
spacewalk handbook specialist. He was selected as an Energia test
cosmonaut candidate in 1998 and trained as an International Space
Station Expedition 8 backup crew member. Kornienko served as a
flight engineer on the station's Expedition 23/24 crews in 2010 and
has logged more than 176 days in space.
During the 12 years of permanent human presence aboard the
International Space Station, scientists and researchers have gained
valuable, and often surprising, data on the effects of microgravity
on bone density, muscle mass, strength, vision and other aspects of
human physiology. This yearlong stay will allow for greater
analysis of these effects and trends.
Kelly and Kornienko will begin a two-year training program in
the United States, Russia and other partner nations starting
early next year.
For Kelly's biographical information, visit:
http://go.nasa.gov/SKelly
For Kornienko's biographical information, visit:
http://go.nasa.gov/MKornienko
For more information about the Russian Federal Space Agency,
visit:
http://www.roscosmos.ru/
For more information about the International Space Station,
visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
Join the conversation on Twitter by following the hashtag
#ISS. To learn more about all the ways to Connect and
Collaborate with NASA, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/connect
SOURCE NASA