UAE astronauts begin training at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center
MOSCOW. Sept 4 (Interfax) - The Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center has begun a training course for two United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronauts for a mission onboard the Soyuz MS manned transport spacecraft to the Russian ISS segment in April 2019.
"The common training program of a UAE astronaut and a back-up spaceman for the space mission implies the training to study the systems of the Russian ISS segment and the Soyuz manned transport spacecraft, a complex and medico-biological training with regular fitness. Trainings of the crew's activity in extreme conditions and situations, flights by an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft with reproduced modes of zero gravity, are also scheduled during the training," the Cosmonaut Training Center said in a statement published on its website on Tuesday.
The ISS mission of the first UAE astronaut is planned in April 2019 and will last about a week, the Cosmonaut Training Center said. That astronaut will fly to the ISS onboard the Soyuz MS-12 manned transport spacecraft and will return with the Soyuz MS-10 crew.