The first stage of training in the US as part of the cross-flight programme has ended and the next training will be held only next year, according to the Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina. The young woman will be the first Russian cosmonaut to join the crew of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
“The preparation is carried out in several approaches […] Literally from the first, I came back on Sunday evening. It lasted two weeks, where I was given the basics, the bases of training,” Kikina said.
According to her, at the first stage, she was prepared separately from the crew of the Crew Dragon-5 mission.
“My next trip will be in the near future, but, of course, next year, and we will train there as part of a full crew,” Kikina said.
The flights of Russian cosmonauts on Crew Dragon spacecraft, and American astronauts on Soyuz (the so-called “cross flights”) was announced to start no earlier than the autumn of 2022. At that moment it was specified that the crew of the Soyuz spacecraft includes Sergey Prokopyev, Anna Kikina, and Dmitry Petelin.
Earlier, it was also reported that the Russian cosmonaut Kikina will open the programme of cross-flights of Roscosmos and NASA. Kikina’s flight to the International Space Station (ISS) will take place in 2022 on the Crew Dragon ship of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
As expected, in 2023 Kikina could set the Russian national female record for being in space. The woman is due to fly to the ISS in September 2022 and stay there for 188 days. At the moment, the Russian record belongs to Elena Kondakova (178 days for two flights at the Mir station).
Ru-Main, 28.12.2021
Source: Interfax
