West Orange Native Astronaut Scott Kelly Comes Home After Nearly a Year in Space

by Alice Magdziak • March 2, 2016 • Jersey Folk, Newsy Jersey • Comments (0) • 1706

At 11:26pm Tuesday night, Astronaut Scott Kelly landed in Kazakhstan after 340 continuous days on the International Space Station. That’s a U.S. record for number of consecutive days in space and he also set a U.S. record for total days in space with 520 days spent in orbit. Scott’s Russian crewmate Mikhail “Misha” Kornienko spent the same 340 days in space with him.

Captain Kelly is being met tonight by his identical twin brother Mark Kelly who was also a NASA astronaut. Mark and Scott will now be studied together to see what long-term effects the year in space has on a body by comparing the two brothers. It is expected that aging will be accelerated for Scott because of the prolonged weightlessness.

Space.com wrote a really good article about many of the important milestones Kelly accomplished during his 340 days in space.

Read more about Kelly’s arrival home here: Record-breaking N.J. astronaut Scott Kelly returning from space today | NJ.com