Scott Kelly (astronaut)

Early life and education

Scott Kelly was born on February 21, 1964, in Orange, New Jersey, to Patricia and Richard Kelly, both police officers. He and his identical twin brother Mark graduated from West Orange Mountain High School in 1982. While in high school, Kelly worked as an emergency medical technician.

He enrolled at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, but after reading The Right Stuff transferred to the State University of New York Maritime College, where he earned a Navy ROTC scholarship. He sailed on the training ship Empire State V during summers and served as student battalion commander for the Navy ROTC detachment. Kelly graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in electrical engineering in 1987 and later earned a Master of Science in aviation systems from the University of Tennessee.

Naval career

After graduation, Kelly was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy. He completed flight school at NAS Pensacola, flying the T-34 Mentor, then trained on jets at Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, Texas, flying the T-2 Buckeye and A-4 Skyhawk. He became a naval aviator in 1989 and flew the F-14 Tomcat with VF-143, deploying aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1993, Kelly was selected for the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, where his classmates included his brother Mark.

After graduating in 1994, he worked at the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate, investigating an F-14 crash and helping develop a digital flight control system. He was the first pilot to fly an F-14 with that system installed. Kelly retired from active duty on June 19, 2012, after 25 years of service, having flown over 8,000 hours in more than 40 aircraft and completed over 250 carrier landings.

NASA career

In 1996, Scott Kelly and his brother Mark were selected as astronaut candidates, the first relatives in NASA history. After training, Kelly worked on the ISS caution and warning system. He piloted STS-103 in December 1999, a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. He later served as NASA's director of operations in Star City, Russia, and as backup crew for ISS Expedition 5 and Expedition 23/24.

After the Columbia disaster, he coordinated debris searches. Kelly commanded the NEEMO 4 mission in September 2002, spending five days saturation diving in the Aquarius underwater laboratory, and later served on NEEMO 8 in April 2005. He flew as mission commander of STS-118 in August 2007. Kelly arrived at the ISS on Soyuz TMA-01M on October 9, 2010, served as flight engineer, and commanded Expedition 26 from November 25, 2010, to March 16, 2011.

In 2012, he was selected with Mikhail Kornienko for a year-long mission, launching on Soyuz TMA-16M on March 27, 2015, and remaining aboard through Expeditions 43, 44, 45, and 46 until March 1, 2016.

Awards and honors

Kelly received an honorary Korolev Diploma from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in 1999 and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the State University of New York in 2008. He was featured on the cover of Time on December 29, 2014, and listed among the Time 100 Most Influential People in 2015.

He is an associate fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and a member of the Association of Space Explorers. In March 2022, Kelly announced he would return his Medal 'For Merit in Space Exploration' to the Russian embassy, suggesting it be given to a Russian mother whose son died in the war in Ukraine. He also became an ambassador for the United24 fundraising platform in October 2022, supporting the Medical Aid direction.

Did You Know?

• Kelly was successfully treated for prostate cancer in 2007.
• He married Amiko Kauderer, a NASA public affairs officer, in July 2018.
• Kelly voiced himself in the 2024 Disney Channel film Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation.