A complete list of future candidates for the first flight to the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) is not yet available. However, it is already known on what principle they will be selected.
According to Sergey Krikalev, Executive Director of Roscosmos for manned space programs and the first cosmonaut to visit the ISS, mock-ups of ROS modules will be created to train the crew and understudies.
But, by the way, since I was in the first expedition to the ISS, I can say that not all simulators were ready for the first expedition. This is, in fact, one of the reasons why the most experienced cosmonauts are taken, who can build some kind of picture in their head, rely somewhere on their experience, somewhere on the experience of previous flights.
Earlier, the management of the Yu.A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center announced that the pre-launch preparation site associated with the ROS will appear at the Vostochny Cosmodrome by 2028.
Cosmonauts who have undergone ground training, as noted in the general schedule for the construction of the ROS, will go on a flight at the end of 2028.
The creation of the ROS will ensure the continuous continuation of the Russian manned program after the termination of participation in the ISS project. Also, the ROS will help Russia advance in solving the tasks of national security, scientific and technological development and the national economy, which are impossible to do on the ISS.
How many cosmonauts are currently in the Roscosmos team?
According to the Yu.A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at the end of March 2024, there were twenty-six active Russian cosmonauts in the team. Ten of them have never left Earth.
Currently, the leaders in the number of flights are:
- Oleg Kononenko — 5 flights;
- Oleg Novitsky — 4 flights;
- Oleg Artemyev — 3 flights;
- Alexey Ovchinin — 2 flights;
- Sergey Ryzhikov — 2 flights;
- Sergey Prokopyev — 2 flights.
Sergey Korsakov, Ivan Wagner, Denis Matveev, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Petr Dubrov, Dmitry Petelin, Andrey Fedyaev, Nikolai Chub, Anna Kikina and Konstantin Borisov have one flight each so far.
At the end of May 2024, the family of Russian cosmonauts was replenished. Following the results of the fourth open selection, Anastasia Burchuladze, Elchin Vakhidov, Vladimir Vorozhko and Alexander Zherebtsov were selected for the cosmonaut team. However, the newcomers are still far from the status of active cosmonauts.
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