NASA astronaut Scott Kelly Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, and Gennady Padalka will spend a year living and working aboard the space station.

The Soyuz spacecraft will carry the trio into space, which will rendezvous with the space station and orbit the earth four times before docking. 

Data and samples will be collected throughout the year from a series of studies by the crew during several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science -- research that impacts life on Earth.