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WATCH LIVE: An astronaut who spent a year in space is returning to Earth

scott kelly
Scott Kelly. NASA

UPDATE: Astronaut Scott Kelly and his two crewmates aboard the Soyuz have safely landed. Read our full coverage here.

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NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly finally comes back to Earth tonight after spending just shy of a year in space.

On March 1, his 340th day aboard the International Space Station (ISS), he'll board the small Russian Soyuz space capsule and cruise back down to the ground.

Undocking of the Soyuz from the ISS is scheduled for 8:02 p.m. ET on Tuesday, March 1 (though coverage will start sooner).

Once the capsule reaches 400,000 feet above the Earth (the ISS orbits at 249 miles) around 10:30 p.m. ET, the planet's atmosphere will be thick enough to start slowing it down.

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Fifteen minutes before landing (11:10 p.m. ET), the parachutes deploy. The Soyuz will go from traveling 755 feet per second to just 5 feet per second when it lands at 11:25 p.m. ET. A quick engine burst will further slow it down when it's just 2.6 feet off the ground.

soyuz landing
What it will look like when Scott Kelly lands in the Soyuz spacecraft tonight. NASA

The landing is still bumpy, so crew seats have cushy, shock-absorbing liners.

Kelly is landing in the desert of Kazakhstan, so he's expected to arrive at 11:25 p.m. ET, which is mid-morning on March 2 local time.

He'll be returning with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko, who has also been in space for a year, and Sergey Volkov, who has been on the ISS since September 2015.

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You can watch the entire journey, beginning with coverage of the farewell around 4:15 p.m. ET, the undocking around 7:45 p.m. ET, and the deorbit and landing around 10:15 p.m. ET in the livestream below. You can also try this link if you have problems with that video. Or tune into channel 352 on your actual television if you have DIRECTV.

NASA Space
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