The American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are to leave Tuesday night the International Space Station (ISS) after a record 340 days living aboard the orbital outpost for preparing a future manned mission to Mars.
They must join the Russian Soyuz docked with the ISS shortly after a farewell ceremony, around 2100 GMT. The closure of the lock is provided for 9:40 p.m. GMT, followed by a little over three hours later, at 1:05 GMT (Wednesday) undocking.
The Soyuz will then depart from the station and about two hours later he will switch twice its orbital motors to slow its course and drop out of Earth orbit to begin a 53-minute dive to Earth.
the landing in the Kazakh steppes is programmed 4:27 GMT or 10:27 local time Wednesday morning.
Scott Kelly, 52, and Mikhail Kornienko, 55, had arrived at the ISS on March 27, 2015. During their long stay in the station, the two men been subject to regular medical examinations as well as a battery of tests and analysis to study the long term effects of microgravity on the human body.
body fluid samples were collected before traveling to the space, and then regularly during the mission and will continue to be collected for more than a year after their return to Earth.
the twin brother Scott Kelly, former astronaut Mark Kelly , also participated in the ground in the experiment. All data collected on the two brothers should provide accurate and useful points of comparison on the physiological effects of long-term space travel.
In an interview last Thursday, said Scott Kelly feel well psychologically and could, if necessary, “one hundred days remain more” or more in the confined space of the ISS.
“I could make a year if necessary “he shouted admitting being” anxious to return “to find his family and friends.
the astronaut was also said to have missed a lot of the lack of running water, which makes things difficult for eg personal hygiene
-. Problem of view –
“It’s a little as if I had spent a year camping in the woods” , he explained.
in microgravity water droplets floating in the air and in contact with the body firmly stuck to the skin, making it very difficult to take a shower. The astronauts do their toilet with wet sponges.
That’s why Scott Kelly said “the first thing” he will arrive home in Houston, Texas, would jump in his pool.
Asked about his health, he had assured to feel “pretty good shape”, with only small weightlessness problems of view. Microgravity indeed increase the cerebrospinal fluid around the optic nerve, affecting vision.
The lack of gravity also has well-known effects on the muscles and the skeleton by reducing muscle mass and bone density, forcing the astronauts to exercise regularly.
the mission of Kelly and Kornienko is the longest stay in the ISS since the first astronaut in the station in 2000 .
during the mission he is about to finish, Scott Kelly broke two American records: one of the longest spaceflight (340 days), and the cumulative duration with 540 days in orbit altogether.
But the absolute record for the longest single stay in space returns to Russian Valeri Polyakov, remained more than 14 consecutive months (437 days to be exact) on board the old Mir space station in 1994 and 1995. and the cumulative in orbit time of flight returns to record another Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who turned around the Earth during 879 days.
the assembly of the ISS, with a mass of 400 tons and the size of a football field, began in 1998. the living area is equivalent to that of a Boeing 747. the ISS operates 370 km above the Earth which she toured 16 times a day to 28,000 km / h.
the crew of six is renewed every six months.
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