NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, today announced the names of the two men who will comprise the first International Space Station (ISS) crew to remain in space continuously for one year.   The mission is scheduled to begin in spring 2015.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko got the nod from their agencies to serve aboard the ISS for this special mission, designed to study the long duration effects of spaceflight conditions on humans.   Both already have served regular tours aboard the ISS — Kelly on Expedition 25/26 that spanned 2010-2011, and Kornienko on Expedition 23/24 in 2010.  Kelly also flew on two space shuttle missions (STS-103 and STS-118) and has a total of over 180 days in space.   Kornienko accumulated 176 days in space on his ISS mission.  Typically, crew members remain on ISS for four-six months and then are replaced by a new crew.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly

Photo credit: NASA

Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko

Photo credit:  NASA

Scott Kelly’s twin brother, Mark, was also a NASA astronaut and scheduled to fly on a space shuttle mission to the ISS while Scott Kelly was aboard.  They would have gone down in the record books as the first twins in space.    Schedule delays pushed Mark Kelly’s shuttle flight beyond his brother’s return from the ISS, however, so that did not happen.  The delay may have been fortuitous for Mark Kelly who had more weeks to help his wife, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, begin her ongoing recovery from an assassination attempt that occurred during that time period.  Mark Kelly resigned from NASA after his shuttle flight.

In announcing the selection of Scott Kelly and Kornienko, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Bill Gerstenmaier said the one-year mission “would 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.”   Roscosmos Director Vladimir Popovkin said “We have chosen the most responsible skilled and enthusiastic crew members to expand space exploration, and we have full confidence in them.”

In the 51 years since the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin inaugurated the era of human spaceflight, only four people have spent one year or more continuously in orbit, all on Russia’s Mir space station.  That is a very small pool of data on the physiological and psychological impacts of long durations in space where humans must cope with microgravity, radiation, and isolation.  Kelly and Kornienko will add two more data points. 

The four who already have experienced such long duration missions are:

• Valeriy Polyakhov, 438 days (about 14 months), 1994-1995
• Sergei Avdeev, 380 days, 1998-1999
• Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov, 366 days, 198701988

In all those cases, other cosmonauts were coming and going to Mir for shorter stays in much the same way that the ISS operates with crews rotating on regular, overlapping schedules.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Ministerial Council approved ESA participation in NASA’s program to build the Orion spacecraft system to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. ESA will provide the service module for the Orion system as an in-kind contribution to offset its share of operating costs for the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017-2020.

ESA and NASA have a long history of cooperation in human spaceflight, from the Spacelab module that flew in the cargo bay of the space shuttle providing a shirt-sleeve environment for research to the Columbus module and the cupola on the ISS. They also have engaged in decades of cooperation on earth and space science programs. NASA’s decision earlier this year to withdraw from the ExoMars program, which envisioned close cooperation between the two on robotic Mars exploration, cast a chill on the relationship, but apparently not for long.  Russia has now replaced the United States as ESA’s ExoMars partner, another agreement formally reached this week.

ESA will build the service module for Orion based on technology and experience from its Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) program. ATV takes cargo to the ISS. ESA will provide the service module to NASA in exchange for ESA’s share of ISS operating costs for 2017-2020 and called the decision “strategically important for Europe,” noting it would put ESA in the “critical path of future human space exploration endeavours, together with NASA.”

That decision was one of many made in the past two days by the relevant ministers for each of ESA’s 20 member states. Collectively they agreed to provide 10 billion euros “for the years ahead.” ESA’s science programs are part of its mandatory activities to which each member state must contribute. They will be flat funded for 2013-2017, which should permit implementation of ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. Among the science programs that will proceed are Gaia, LISA Pathfinder, BepiColombo, Solar Orbiter, Euclid and JUICE. A proposal for a lunar lander will not.

A contentious issue within the optional program — where each country decides whether or not to participate — is whether to build an improved version of the Ariane 5 launch vehicle, an Ariane 5 ME (for Mid-life Evolution), or design a new Ariane 6 that might better fit future market needs. The ministers punted on that issue, approving two years of funding for both and scheduling another ministerial meeting two years from now to further debate the topic. During a press conference today, a reporter pointed out to ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain that Elon Musk, founder and CEO/CTO of SpaceX, had said in a recent interview that ESA could not compete with SpaceX’s Falcon rocket if it chose Ariane 5 ME over Ariane 6. Dordain jokingly asked whether that meant Musk wanted to contribute to Ariane 6, but on a serious note said that the design of Ariane 6 would respond to customer requirements — reliability, lower cost, and payload mass to orbit.

ESA is a European space agency whose ties to the European Union are increasingly close. Eighteen of ESA’s 20 members also are members of the EU and two-thirds of the EU members belong to ESA, Dordain said. ESA and the EU are working together on developing a navigation satellite system, Galileo, and the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) system using Sentinel satellites. The ESA ministers approved an extension to ESA’s navigation satellite effort for 2013-2015, which includes Galileo and another system, EGNOS, as well as to the GMES Space Component program for 2013-2014.  Member states started subscribing for the next time period for GMES, 2015-2020, too.  Other space applications programs in earth observation and meteorology were continued.

Specifics on funding for any of these programs were not released today, only the top line figure of 10 billion Euros. Dordain said during the press conference this level of commitment was a “big success” considering the economic conditions in Europe and is a recognition of the role that space activities play in competitiveness and economic growth.