Kelly, Mark

Mark Kelly, in full Mark Edward Kelly, (born February 21, 1964, Orange, New Jersey, U.S.), American astronaut and politician who served in the U.S. Senate (2020– ), representing Arizona. He is the identical twin brother of astronaut Scott Kelly.

Mark Kelly received a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering and transportation from the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, in 1986. Scott and Mark became pilots in the U.S. Navy in 1987 and 1989, respectively. Mark flew 39 combat missions during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Both brothers graduated from the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland, in 1994. That year Mark also received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Scott Kelly and Mark Kelly

Mark and Scott Kelly began their astronaut training in August 1996. Mark’s first spaceflight was as pilot of the space shuttle Endeavour on the STS-108 mission (December 5–17, 2001), which carried three astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Mark flew again to the ISS in July 2006 on the 13-day STS-121 mission as pilot of the space shuttle Discovery, which carried a German astronaut to the ISS, increasing its crew from two to three. Mark made two subsequent flights to the ISS as mission commander. On the STS-124 mission (May 31–June 14, 2008) of the space shuttle Discovery, commanded by Mark, the Japanese experiment module Kibo was joined to the ISS.

Scott was launched to the ISS on the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-01M on October 8, 2010 and was on board until March 16, 2011. Mark was originally scheduled to arrive at the ISS in February 2011 as commander of the space shuttle Endeavour’s last mission, STS-134, which was to attach the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an experiment designed to study antimatter, dark matter, and cosmic rays, to the ISS, and the Kelly twins would then have become the first siblings in space at the same time. However, delays in launching an earlier mission pushed STS-134’s launch to May 16, 2011.

Mark Kelly holding the hand of his wife, Gabrielle Giffords

Endeavour: STS-134

Mark’s wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, was seriously wounded during an assassination attempt on January 8, 2011. At Mark’s request the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) appointed a backup commander, Rick Sturckow, in the event that Mark would be unable to complete preparing for STS-134. However, Giffords recovered from her injuries much more quickly than expected, and she was able to watch Mark launch into space. STS-134 returned to Earth on June 1, and in October Mark left NASA and the U.S. Navy to help Giffords with her recovery. One month later Giffords and Mark published Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope (written with Jeffrey Zaslow). In 2013, in response to the Newtown shootings of 2012, they founded Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization and political action committee dedicated to reducing gun violence in the United States. In 2019 Mark announced that he was running for a U.S. Senate seat from Arizona, and he was elected in November 2020; he took office the following month.