Today NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who recently returned from a year on the International Space Station, announced that he will retire from the space agency on April 1. Kelly has been an astronaut since 1996 and is on record as the American who has spent the longest time in space.
Following his April 1 retirement, Kelly will still be a participant in ongoing follow-up research regarding the one-year mission. He'll give medical samples periodically and participate in other testing in a similar way to how his twin brother Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, continued his availability for the NASA Twins Study while his brother was in space.
"This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time to reflect on what my next step should be on our continued journey to help further our capabilities in space and on Earth," Kelly said. "My career with the Navy and NASA gave me an incredible chance to showcase public service to which I am dedicated, and what we can accomplish on the big challenges of our day. I am humbled and excited by new opportunities for me to support and share the amazing work NASA is doing to help us travel farther into the solar system and work with the next generation of science and technology leaders."
Scott Kelly was on four spaceflights, starting in 1999 on space shuttle Discovery to the Hubble Space Telescope on for the STS-103 servicing mission. On STS-118, his second mission, he walked across the threshold of the International Space Station for the first time, while serving as commander of Endeavour, the space shuttle. In 2010 he returned to the ISS to stay for six months, as commander of Expedition 26.
Kelly is a veteran of spaceflight, and he participated in NASA's yearlong space station mission, which hoped to collect critical data on the human body's response to very long space missions.
Having exceeded two American space records, he said: "Records are meant to be broke. I am looking forward to when these records in space are surpassed."
"Scott's contributions to NASA are too many to name," noted Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "In his year aboard the space station, he took part in experiments that will have far-reaching effects, helping us pave the way to putting humans on Mars and benefiting life on Earth. His passion for this work has helped give hundreds of thousands of people a better understanding of what NASA does, thanks in part to the numerous photos and updates he shared from space. We appreciate his years of service and anticipate many benefits to come from them, thanks to the research he's supporting."
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