Kelly launches soon, SpaceX too

Kelly and Korniyenko's one year mission patch.
- Credit: NASA

It is T minus 5 days till Scott Kelly, along with Mikhail Korniyenko and Gennady Padalka launch to the ISS. Kelly and Korniyenko will be staying aboard for a whole year before returning to earth in March of 2016.

Liftoff is scheduled for 27 March 2015 at 2:42 p.m. CDT in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan aboard Soyuz TMA-16M. 

Kelly has been tweeting regularly about his preparations to launch, and he plans to continue tweeting regularly in space, something that has become common of most American astronauts.

"I'm thinking this is about to get real. #YearInSpace"
- Credit: @StationCDRKelly

The 51 year old Kelly has spent more than 180 days in space to date on two space shuttle missions and aboard the ISS on the expedition 25/26 crew increment. 

On this mission, NASA has the opportunity to compare how his body reacts to being in space for a year with his identical twin brother, Mark, who will stay on Earth.

Mark was also an astronaut and spent over 54 days in space on four shuttle missions. He is currently retired. 

The purpose of the year long mission is to better understand how the human body reacts to longer missions, such as a mission to mars, which will be on the order of 30 or more months long. One of the main focuses will be on the human eye. It has been found that microgravity effects astronauts' vision. It is believed to be caused by the swelling of tissue at the back of the eye due to fluid flow. This distorts the eye's shape. It can cause near sightedness and farsightedness.

A photo of a CRS-3 at the launch pad in April 2014.
- Credit: NASA

Two weeks after Kelly and crew launch to the station, SpaceX will be in the spotlight launching its next Dragon capsule to ISS.

SpX-6 or CRS-6 will launch on April 10 at 4:42 p.m. CDT. This comes after a delay with another Falcon 9 rocket that was to launch a European-built communications satellite for the government of Turkmenistan. SpaceX decided to flip the order of launches as to keep the flow going, and not cause large delays with the overall manifest.

This Falcon 9 rocket will have landing legs affixed to it's first stage and will attempt to land on the company's Automated Spaceport Drone Ship known as "Just Read The Instructions."

If the landing is successful, it will be the first time SpaceX has recovered a booster stage, and the first time a flown orbital class rocket has landed on an ocean going platform.

SpaceX intends to use the first recovered stage as a test article in New Mexico to determine hardware limits, such as how many times the stage can be reused.