Astronauts blast off for 1-year trip

2 willready space station forU.S. com m ercialcraft.

BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN — American astronaut Scott Kelly and his Russian counterp art Mikhail Kornienko blasted off early today on a mission to sp end an entire year aw ay from Earth.

The trip is NASA’s (irst attemp t at a one-year sp aceflight, anticip ating Mars exp editions that w ould last tw o to three years.

Their Soyuz sp ace cap - sule, w hich set off from Russia’s manned sp ace launch facility on the step p es of Kazakhstan, w as to dock w ith the International Sp ace Station about six hours later after making four orbits of the p lanet.

Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka of Russia w as also aboard their Soyuz cap sule. He is scheduled for the standard six-month tour of duty aboard the sp ace station.

Kelly’s tw in Mark, a retired astronaut, agreed to take p art in many of the same medical exp eriments as his orbiting sibling to help scientists see how a body in sp ace comp ares w ith its genetic double on Earth. They are 51.

Kelly and Kornienko, 54, w ill undergo extensive medical exp eriments, and p rep are the station for the anticip ated 2017 arrival of new U.S. commercial crew cap sules. That means a series of sp acew alks for Kelly, w hich w ill be his (irst.

The tw o men also w ill oversee the comings and goings of numerous cargo ship s, as w ell as other Russian-launched sp ace crew s and an exp ected Sep tember visit from singer Sarah Brightman on a “sp ace tourist” trip .

Doctors are eager to learn w hat hap p ens to Kelly and Kornienko once they surp ass the usual six-month stay for sp ace station residents.

Bones and muscles w eaken in w eightlessness, as does the immune system. Body fluids also shift into the head w hen gravity is absent, p utting p ressure on the brain and the eyes, imp airing vision for some astronauts in sp ace.

The yearlong stint w ill allow doctors to assess w hether such conditions are aggravated by a long sp ell in sp ace or w hether they stabilize or even tap er off.

NASA has never had anyone fly longer than seven consecutive months. The Russians hold the w orld record of 14 months in sp ace, set by Valery Polyakov aboard the former Mir sp ace station in 1994-95.