In Pics: US astronaut Scott Kelly returns back on earth after spending a year in space

Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko spent nearly a year in space along with Kelly

Though this space mission was not about making or breaking records, it was a mission undertaken to study the effects of long-duration spaceflight on human body.

The ISS crew members were carried to chairs at the landing site

The space bound Kelly wasn’t only spending time eating veggies and taking selfies in space but also collecting blood, urine, saliva, and poop—for science! And at the same time, NASA has been taking samples from his identical twin to compare the situations and get a better handle on what happens to the human bodies in space. The idea behind the twin study remains to help minimise extraneous factors as scientists research how genetically identical individuals respond to different conditions over a year.

A parachute carried the Soyuz capsule on the final leg of its return journey

Before his landing, “Kelly during a live link-up told “Physically I feel pretty good... but the hardest part is being isolated in the physical sense from people on the ground who are important to you. There's a loss of connection.” From Kazakhstan, reportedly Kelly will be flown to Houston in the US, where researchers at NASA will begin a series of scientific checks.

The capsule scorched by re-entry, landed exactly on schedule

The comparisons drawn from their tests would help them to deepen their understanding of the physical and psychological shifts that take place during the long stays in orbit. NASA says the research should inform its stated aim of one day sending humans to Mars. On Monday, Kelly handed over command of the space station to his American colleague Timothy Kopra, who remains on the orbiting outpost with Tim Peake and the Russian Yuri Malenchenko.