Kelly Twins Pretend To Swap Spots As New Crew Checks In At Station

A new crew arrived at the International Space Station tonight, and if you didn't know better, you would think the guys destined to be the first twins to fly in space together pulled a fast one on NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency.

U.S. astronauts Scott Kelly and two cosmonaut colleagues -- Alexander Kalery and Oleg Skripochka -- docked at the station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at 8:01 p.m. Three hours later, they joined the existing crew -- U.S. astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yutchikhin -- onboard the outpost.

The big side story is that Scott Kelly's twin brother, Mark Kelly, will be the commander of the shuttle mission that flies up to the station in late February. It'll be the first time blood relatives, in this case twins, have flown together in orbit.

During a post-docking celebration at the Russian Mission Control Center in Moscow, Mark Kelly made a call up to his twin brother on the station.

"Hey Mark. This is Scott. You know, six months is a long time in space, so thanks for switching spots with me," Mark Kelly joked. "Um, I just hope I can remember how to fly that space shuttle. So appreciate that."

Said Scott Kelly: "That's pretty funny."

Mark Kelly is slated to blast off with five other astronauts on Feb. 27. Their flight currently is the last scheduled shuttle mission before the shuttle fleet is retired. One more mission, however, might be added if Congress approves funding.

Coming up next week: The crew of what now is slated to be the penultimate shuttle mission will fly to Kennedy Space Center for a traditional practice countdown. We'll have live coverage of the arrival around 5 p.m. Tuesday.