Scott Kelly’s 1.4 million-mile odyssey ended with a bump after a fiery 17,000mph plummet back to Earth, capping a record-setting 340 days in orbit.
The outgoing commander of the International Space Station (ISS) landed on the frost-covered Kazakh Steppe, along with Sergei Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko, his Russian colleagues, at 10.26am Houston time.
“The air feels great out here. I have no idea why you guys are bundled up,” he joked to members of the recovery crew who extracted him from the Russian Soyuz capsule, taking deep breaths of the freezing desert breeze after nearly a year of bottled air on board the ISS.
Kelly, 52, broke two US records during his nearly year-long stay– one for the most consecutive days spent in space, and the other for the most cumulative days in space, having also flown two space shuttle missions in 1999 and 2007.
During his mission he orbited the Earth 5,440 times and experienced 10,880 sunrises and sunsets. He also drank 780 litres of recycled urine, thanks to a water-purification processor on board.
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Among his crewmates for the past two and a half months was the British astronaut Tim Peake, who is due to return from the ISS in June.
Kelly has been – and will continue to be – the subject of physiological studies also involving his identical twin Mark, who retired from Nasa’s Astronaut Corps in 2011. The space agency aims to use the results to learn more about the effects of long-term space flight on the human body.
The studies are necessary to understanding the physical challenges involved in sending humans to Mars, as Nasa hopes to do by the mid-2030s, such as how microgravity affects vision, fine motor skills, mental health and bone and muscle strength.
“There’s nothing we can’t accomplish if we put our minds and resources behind it. If we can dream it, we can do it,” he said in his last press conference from the ISS before he departed.
On the way down, the crew endured crushing G-forces as the Soyuz re-entered the atmosphere before a parachute deployed to bring it the final 6.6 miles to the Earth.
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“I could go another year if I had to ... although I do look forward to going home,” he said before leaving the ISS.
After initial medical checks, he was due to fly on a Nasa aircraft straight back to his home town of Houston, Texas, for more testing at Johnson Space Centre. After that, he said, “I’m going to go home and jump in my pool.”