Imagine living for an entire year in space. That's what NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is about to do. Kelly, who is making final preparations in Moscow for his launch later in March to spend one year living and working on the International Space Station, talked with News 13's Ybeth Bruzual on Monday about his upcoming mission.

YBETH BRUZUAL: Has an astronaut ever spent an entire year on the International Space Station?

SCOTT KELLY: On the International Space Station, no one's been up there that long. So far, I think the longest flight I think is 220 days, or around there.

The Russians have cosmonauts that have spent a year, or in some cases a little bit longer, in space. But this is the first time we are doing it on the space station.

YB: Why are you doing this? How did you get selected?

KELLY: The reason behind it is just expanding our envelope and understanding about how people can live and work in space for longer periods of time. And the way I got selected is just like a lot of things: Part ability, part luck, part timing.

YB: And part awesomeness, I'm sure. You guys are going to be very busy up there, doing hundreds of experiments. One in particular, though, has to do with your twin brother, now-retired astronaut Mark Kelly. Tell me about that.

KELLY: Well, my brother and I are identical twins, and as such we have very similar DNA — not exactly the same, but very, very close — and NASA has data on him from going back from 1995 until when we first interviewed. And, you know, he's flown in space, and he's got some spaceflight experience — flown four times — but I'll have probably close to 10 times that amount once I get back from this flight.

Most of the experiments that compare us are genetic-based — looking at the changes in our DNA, RNA and protein that has occured over the course of this yearlong period. There's also some other stuff about the microbiome: The bacteria that live inside of us. That's investigating that as well, and some cognitive experiments.

But you know, like any scientist will tell you, this is only one data point. So, what we learn here is somewhat anecdotal. The results will be somewhat anecdotal information, but will give us a sense of some areas that we need to investigate further — how the space environment, radiation, microgravity, those kinds of things affect us on a mostly genetic level.

Scott Kelly launches from Kazakhstan to the International Space Station on Friday, March 27, to spend an entire year in space.