At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft was mated to its Soyuz booster rocket March 24 as preparations continued for the launch of Expedition 43 Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and NASA Flight Engineer Scott Kelly on March 27 U.S. time (March 28, Kazakh time) to the International Space Station.
Kelly and Kornienko will spend a year aboard the station conducting research on the long duration effect of space travel on the human body.
