Astronaut Scott Kelly Hands Over Command of the International Space Station
It's the end of a historic era.
Scott Kelly says he’d be happy to spend another 100 days in space, but all good things come to an end. The 52-year-old astronaut is winding down the final days of his #YearinSpace, and Monday he handed over command of the International Space Station to astronaut Tim Kopra.
NASA posted footage of the traditional Change of Command ceremony. Kelly returns to Earth Tuesday after a yearlong mission. Three years, if you count how long it’ll take to wrap up the biological studies NASA is doing on Kelly.
“I would like to relinquish command of the International Space Station to my friend and colleague here, Tim Kopra,” Kelly says, before passing the mic, and his responsibilities for the station and maintaining a sick Twitter feed.
Kopra won’t have official command of Expedition 47 until a Soyuz spacecraft with Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov leaves the space station on March 1.
