posted 12-10-2016 02:59 PM               

Space Cover #395: One Year on the Space Station

Special cover commemorating Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko one year long stay in space through the International Space Station Expeditions 43, 44, 45 and 46. The cover signed by all crew members:

• Scott Kelly (ISS 43/44/45/46)
  
• Mikhail Kornienko (ISS 43/44/45/46)
  
• Anton Shkarpelov (ISS 43)
  
• Terry Virts (ISS 43)
  
• Samantha Cristoforetti (ISS 43)
  
• Gennady Padalka (ISS 43/44)
  
• Oleg Kononenko (ISS 44/45)
  
• Kimiya Yui (ISS 44/45)
  
• Kjell Lindgren (ISS 44/45)
  
• Sergey Volkov (ISS 45/46)
  
• Yuri Malenchenko (ISS 46)
  
• Tim Peake (ISS 46)
  
• Timothy Kopra (ISS 46)
  
• Aidyn Aimbetov (Soyuz TMA-18M)

The Year Long mission was a scientific research project that studies the health effects of long term spaceflight associated with future solar system exploration as NASA plans for missions around the moon, an asteroid and ultimately Mars. Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko spent 340 days in space, with scientists performing medical experiments. Kelly and Kornienko launched in March 2015 on Soyuz TMA-16M along with Gennady Padalka and docked the International Space Station on Mar 28, 2015.

Both spacemen returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-18M on March 2, 2016 with Sergey Volkov. The below presented card is from the Soyuz TMA-18M welcome event in Star City, note the Kelly signature was taken later as during the event he just participated in press conference and did not stay to sign, catching the plane home.

Scott Kelly hold a records for non-Russian spacemen: the longest stay in space (340 days). Note that during Kelly stay as part of ISS Expedition 44, Gennady Padalka established a world record of 878 cumulative days in space!

Interesting point regarding ISS "visitor" Aidyn Aimbetov who came aboard Soyuz TMA-18M, besides being the first KazCosmos cosmonaut he was the fourth choice for the "tourist" chair. The primary tourist was planned to be British singer Sara Brightman but she withdrew from training, her backup — Japanese businessman Satoshi Takamatsu was not ready by the launch, then came Russian businessman Filaret Galchev but he dropped as well due to lack of time for training. Finally the spot was taken by KazCosmos.