NASA, Roscosmos assign two astronauts for year-long space station mission

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. space agency NASA, Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos, and their international partners have selected two veteran spacefarers for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station in 2015, said a statement issued Monday from NASA.

The two, Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, will launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in spring 2015 and will land in Kazakhstan in spring 2016.

The goal of their yearlong expedition aboard the orbiting laboratory is to understand better how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space.

They will collect scientific data important to future human exploration of the solar system during the mission.

The Data will help inform current assessments of crew performance and health and determine better and validate countermeasures to reduce the risks associated with future exploration.

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