A Mission of Accomplishments

In his final in-flight event aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA discussed the accomplishments of his year-long mission on the orbital laboratory during a news conference with U.S. media on Feb. 25. Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos are in the final days of their year in space on the station, gathering valuable biomedical data on the long duration effect of weightlessness on the human body that will be used to formulate a human mission to Mars. Kelly, Kornienko and cosmonaut Sergey Volkov are preparing for their return to Earth on March 1, U.S. time, aboard the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft, headed for a landing on the steppe of south-central Kazakhstan.