Scott Kelly’s day starts with a sunrise, 250 miles above Earth.

In orbit, the commander of the International Space Station will see many more before zipping himself into a zero-gravity sleeping bag.

Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are spending 340 days in space to test how people respond to long-duration spaceflight. On March 1, both return home to Earth. It’s a first step toward a possible manned mission to Mars.

In between those thousands of sunrises and sunsets, Kelly keeps busy performing science experiments, enjoying space-grown salad, and taking advantage of photographic opportunities unavailable to the earthbound:

With ISS crewmates, he will have conducted more than 400 different experiments before his scheduled March 1 touchdown.

Astronauts have even grown flowers and veggies in orbit, supplementing their diets with romaine lettuce grown on the space station.

Since blasting off in 2015, Kelly has captured some amazing views of cities and scenery:

But for all the beautiful views, he says, “I think the thing I look forward to most is just going outside. It will be nice to just be able to get outside and feel the sun on my face and the breeze on my neck.”

You can follow Scott Kelly’s return live on March 1, and find more of his photography on Twitter at @StationCDRKelly.

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