Scott Joseph Kelly was born in Orange, New Jersey, on February 21, 1964, and NASA's biography identifies him as a retired U.S. Navy captain and NASA astronaut.1 NASA selected Kelly in April 1996, assigned him early technical work in the Astronaut Office Spacecraft Systems/Operations branch, and later recorded four spaceflights across shuttle and station missions.1
Navy and Test-Pilot Background
Kelly received his Navy commission in May 1987, became a naval aviator in July 1989, flew F-14s with Fighter Squadron 143 from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower deployments, and completed U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in June 1994.1 NASA records that he worked as a test pilot at Patuxent River on F-14 and F/A-18 aircraft, became the first pilot to fly an F-14 with an experimental digital flight-control system, and performed high-angle-of-attack and departure testing.1 NASA's biography credits him with more than 8,000 hours in more than 40 aircraft and spacecraft and more than 250 carrier landings before his June 2012 Navy retirement.1
NASA Astronaut and ISS Record
Kelly served as pilot on STS-103 in 1999, commanded STS-118 in 2007, commanded ISS Expedition 26 after a 2010 Soyuz launch, and launched again in March 2015 for the year-long ISS mission.1 NASA said Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth after a historic 340-day ISS mission on March 1, 2016, and NASA reported that Kelly had accumulated 520 days in space at the end of that mission, then the most among U.S. astronauts.2 NASA's station record page lists Kelly at 340 days for a single spaceflight and 520 cumulative days, showing that the former U.S. marks have since been surpassed.3 NASA's mission release said the crew conducted almost 400 investigations, and the Twins Study compared Scott Kelly in space with his identical twin Mark Kelly on Earth to examine long-duration spaceflight effects.24 NASA later described the Twins Study as a ten-investigation Human Research Program effort, while cautioning that a single spaceflight subject limits conclusions for all astronauts or future crews.5
NASA UAP Study Role
NASA selected Kelly in October 2022 as one of 16 members of its independent study team on unidentified aerial phenomena, and the same announcement described him as a former NASA astronaut, test pilot, fighter pilot, and retired Navy captain.6 NASA's UAP page says the team was commissioned to examine unidentified anomalous phenomena from a scientific perspective by identifying available data, future data-collection methods, and ways NASA could use data to improve scientific understanding.7 The final report says the team was composed of experts from science, technology, data, artificial intelligence, space exploration, aerospace safety, media, and commercial innovation, and that it was assigned to produce a roadmap rather than review previous UAP incidents.89 NASA's September 2023 release said the report used unclassified data and led the agency to appoint Mark McInerney as director of UAP research, which places Kelly's role in the advisory study phase rather than in an ongoing NASA UAP office.9
Operational Relevance and Limits
Kelly's relevance to UAP analysis is operational: his Navy flight-test work, carrier aviation, shuttle systems experience, Soyuz and ISS operations, and station command background overlap with the aviation and spaceflight contexts in which unusual observations, sensor artifacts, and safety questions can arise.126 That experience is not the same as being a UAP investigator with independent evidentiary findings, and NASA's report emphasizes that UAP conclusions require calibrated instruments, metadata, structured curation, and distance and velocity context rather than pilot reputation alone.8 The report also states that existing UAP observations are often inconsistent, sparsely curated, or collected by systems not optimized for scientific analysis, which constrains what any individual panel member could responsibly infer from the available record.89
People Index Relevance
Kelly belongs in the people index because he links NASA's human-spaceflight operations with the agency's later NASA UAP Study Team in a documented advisory capacity.67 The public NASA sources reviewed for this dossier identify him as an experienced astronaut and operational aviator who contributed to a UAP study team, not as a primary UAP witness, whistleblower, or claimant.1689