Former astronaut twin brothers Mark and Scott Kelly arranged for a gorilla suit stunt aboard the International Space Station that crew members knew about in advance. But it was Scott, not Mark, who was recorded wearing it in space, contrary to some social posts.
Claims that former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly "once smuggled a full gorilla suit on board the International Space Station" (archive) and "didn't tell anyone about it" have circulated (archive) on social media (archive) since at least 2016. Take, for example, the post on Reddit shown below:
Astronaut Mark Kelly once smuggled a full gorilla suit on board the International Space Station. He didn't tell anyone about it. One day, without anyone knowing, he put it on.
byu/alwanfilm inBeAmazed
Interestingly enough, Mark Kelly has a twin brother — also an astronaut — named Scott, and we've come across plenty of social media posts like the one below that made exactly the same claim about him:
In 2016, former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly smuggled a full gorilla suit onboard the International Space Station but didn't tell anyone about it. Until one day, he decided to creep up on his fellow crew member pic.twitter.com/uop15g6bHW
— WTF Facts (@mrwtffacts) February 17, 2023
Though this stunt indeed occurred, posts like those above muddled some of the specifics of surrounding the #SpaceGorilla incident. Mark and Scott Kelly planned the gorilla suit stunt together, and the rest of the International Space Station (ISS) crew were clued in about it in advance. Mark, who wasn't on the ISS at the time, arranged to have the suit sent from Earth to Scott, and Scott was the one who actually wore the suit in the video.
Both of the Kelly brothers posted on X about it. We dug through Mark Kelly's X (formerly Twitter) timeline and found that he originally posted the video on Feb. 22, 2016 (archive):
Folks, I'm pretty sure that's an #ApeInSpace aboard the @Space_Station. pic.twitter.com/0ht6ilXhxK
— Captain Mark Kelly (@CaptMarkKelly) February 22, 2016
Scott Kelly posted (archive) it the following day and had received more than 23,000 views as of this publication:
Needed a little humor to lighten up a #YearInSpace. Go big, or go home. I think I'll do both. #SpaceApehttps://t.co/Ift8VdDR4C
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) February 23, 2016
Our newsroom then searched through the NASA archives and found a recap of the #SpaceApe debacle posted by the space agency on Feb. 4, 2020. It confirmed other news accounts that said Mark Kelly arranged to have the suit sent from Earth to his twin brother aboard ISS:
To surprise astronaut Scott J. Kelly for his Feb. 21, 2016, birthday during his one-year mission aboard ISS, his twin brother astronaut Mark E. Kelly arranged for the delivery of a life-size gorilla costume to the station. In addition to some mild-mannered shenanigans while wearing the gorilla costume that he posted to social media, such as chasing fellow Expedition 46 crewmember Timothy N. Peake through the Destiny module, [Scott] Kelly also recorded some educational videos dressed in the non-standard garb.
As Scott Kelly told People in January 2022 (archive), the entire stunt was planned — and his fellow astronaut Tom Peak, who was also shown in the video, wasn't surprised:
That's all staged. That's why he's floating around, swimming in air, we wanted it to look funny.
It was the end of my year in space … so you need a little humor.
Tagging onto his out-of-this-world primate fame, Scott Kelly even posted an educational video to X on Oct. 16, 2017, (archive) while wearing the #SpaceGorilla suit, explaining "what happens when you cry in space."
What happens when you cry in space? #SpaceGorilla explains. What else do you want to know about? Join me on @Reddit now! #AskMeAnything pic.twitter.com/ZQrmjg89zU
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) October 16, 2017
Mark Kelly, who became a U.S. Senator of Arizona, retired from NASA and the U.S. Navy in June 2011 after 10 years of space flights, according to his NASA profile. Scott Kelly was first selected by NASA in 1996 and retired from the space agency after 20 years of service.