14 DAY TRIAL // For the first time, twin brothers Mark and Scott Kelly will spend eight days together in space next year, as Mark Kelly will be in command of the last programmed space shuttle flight and Scott Kelly will be the commander of the International Space Station.
On this occasion, NASA will organize satellite interviews with the two brothers, on Tuesday, August 17th between 9:15 and 11:15 am CDT.
On October 7 (October 8 local time), Scott Kelly is scheduled to lauch to the space station aboard an Russian Soyuz spaceship, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
He will serve as flight engineer for Expedition 25 and commander for Expedition 26, for a six-month-long mission aboard the complex.
Mark, his twin brother will be the commander of shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission and is programmed to visit the International Space Station in February, to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and supplies.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is the largest instrument to ever been installed on the ISS to study the origins of the universe by searching for antimatter, strange matter, dark matter and by measuring cosmic rays.
The project is a collaboration between institutes from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland, along with help from Russia, China, Taiwan and the United States.
If the launching schedule is respected, the two twin brothers should have eight days together, before the shuttle must undock and return to Earth.
The Kellys are both captains in the US Navy and were born February 21th 1964 in Orange New Jersey, considering West Orange NJ as their hometown.
Scott has flown as pilot of the STS-103 in 1999 and as commander of STS-118 in 2007, and Mark has flown on three prior missions, as pilot of STS-108 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006, and as commander of STS-124 in 2008.