Three retired colonels, all U.S. Military Academy graduates, will head skyward starting that month, with Tim Kopra (Class of 1985) off to the station for the more standard visit of about six months. Before Kopra returns to Earth in May 2016, Jeff Williams ('80) will launch in March, returning that September.
The same month Williams lands, Shane Kimbrough ('89) will head into orbit, scheduled to be gone until early 2017.
It'll mark the first extended stay in space for Kimbrough, who flew on a 16-day mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2008 that assisted in ISS assembly. Kopra visited the station for two months in 2009, and Williams will be making his fourth trip to space and his third long-duration ISS stay.
He'll also pass a major milestone, entering the flight with more than 362 days off the planet.
"Sometimes I forget my own birthday, so [marking a year in space] probably won't be a big deal," Williams said in a phone interview from Russia's Star City, where he's training for the mission. "It's going to be just a few days into the flight, so I'll just be getting going. It is a significant milestone, I don't take that for granted."
Sergei Krikalev holds the record for time spent in space, at more than 803 days.
A second chance
Williams has been training for more than a year and will serve as Kelly's backup for the March launch. Kimbrough will serve as Williams' backup for the 2016 launch. Before all that, it's Kopra's turn — one the Operation Desert Storm veteran wasn't sure he'd ever get.
Scheduled to fly on a 2011 shuttle mission, Kopra broke his leg and lost his spot. He hasn't been to space since.
"I spent a couple of years recuperating," he said. "When you have a major medical issue, you're never 100 percent sure how the flight doctors are going to view it. I was eligible for flight; that's half the hurdle — we have a very large office and very few flight opportunities."
Getting into that office is an accomplishment in itself. None of the West Point trio went to the academy in search of a career in space, though once it became clear that a career in the Army could lead to and coincide with a career as an astronaut, it didn't take much of a push.
"When I was a little kid, every 6-year-old wanted to be an astronaut," Kopra said. "At some point, you realize what an unrealistic career path that is."
Williams was part of the 1996 astronaut class. Kopra began working at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1998, while Kimbrough joined up in 2000 after assignments that included a stint as a West Point assistant professor.
The space center may be in Houston, and all three retired officers may have space shuttle experience, but Russia has been the hub for manned launches to the ISS since the end of the U.S. shuttle program in 2011.
Williams figured he's been to Russia about 50 times since 1999. It's an unexpected detour, especially considering his first Army assignment overlooked the Fulda Gap, long considered a likely spot where the Cold War could get hot.
"We were always focused on the Soviet threat," he said. "To be here, beginning years later, and now for about 15 years or more, I continue to be overwhelmed by the irony and the history of it."
Star City remains a politics-free zone, said Kopra, who pointed to U.S.-Soviet collaboration during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission as an example that international relations can take a back seat to space travel.
All astronauts headed to the ISS through 2016 will continue to launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, aboard a Russian Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft. NASA expects to replace Soyuz launches with the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 reusable spacecraft in 2017.
Future missions
All three astronauts offered similar answers when asked what junior officers could do, outside of all the official requirements, to become an Army astronaut — follow your dream, but don't lose sight of your duties and your soldiers along the way.
"You just have to do the best job at whatever job you're doing," Kimbrough said. "You've got the worst job in the battalion or the regiment, or the best job, you've just got to make it the best thing in the world."
"I would encourage people not to try to build a resume, but to do the best they can in whatever capacity they are called to serve," Williams said.
"If people decide they want something that's on the border of unachievable, you have to like the path you're on, independent of where you end up," said Kopra, who became the first person to send a Twitter message from the ISS in 2009.
He said he might fire up his social-media account again come November "if I can find something interesting to send out" — he'd sent only 68 other messages from @astro_tim as of mid-March.
From Kopra's upcoming vantage point, content shouldn't be a problem. As Williams put it, "I am looking forward to going back ... you never get tired of the view."
Staff writer John Bretschneider contributed to this report.
Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.
