Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko performed the first one-year stay at the space station,[4] returning on Soyuz TMA-18M.

Soyuz TMA-16M was launched successfully aboard a Soyuz-FG rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 19:42 UTC on Friday, 27 March 2015.

After executing rendezvous maneuvers, the Soyuz docked with the zenith port of the International Space Station's Poisk module approximately six hours after launch, at 01:33 UTC on 28 March.

[9][10] Soyuz TMA-16M remained docked to the ISS—serving as an emergency escape vehicle–until 12 September 2015, when it departed and returned Padalka, Andreas Mogensen, and Aydyn Aimbetov to Earth.

Soyuz TMA-16M undocked from the ISS at 21:29 UTC on 11 September 2015, containing Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency.