June 21, 2019 at 13:00Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City
April 12, we conducted an experiment on the distribution of the Internet using stratospheric probes. The experiment was watched by a thousand Habrazhitel, many of you took part in the competition to guess where our server will land.
The closest was Vlad vvzvlad , on July 20 he will go to Baikonur to see the launch of the Soyuz manned spacecraft.
The prize for 3rd place was a participation in a group excursion to the Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City. Last Friday, we were able to get there, now we are sharing our knowledge about training astronauts, how to get into the squad, and is it possible to become an astronaut at all in our time?
A bit of information about Star City. This is a closed city (approximately 6000 inhabitants), here is the only Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia. All cosmonauts, including foreign ones, undergo pre-flight preparation for the flight to the ISS here. Many astronauts in Star City not only work, but also live.
The center was created in 1960 to prepare a person for space flight, then the town was called Zeleniy, it is located near the city of Shchelkovo, 25 km from Moscow.
Our tour began at the Star City checkpoint. An individual tour at the Center cannot be booked; only a group tour through agencies is acquired. At the same time, we ordered a tour for 2 months, before there were no empty seats. 2 weeks before arrival, a list of participants must be submitted, for foreigners 45 days in advance. The document goes through several approvals, we counted 9 signatures and seals on our entry sheet. Before entering the standard check of documents, and we get to the Center.
First, we are escorted to the Soyuz spacecraft hall, here are full-size mock-ups of the ships, on which before, and now the astronauts enter orbit and reach the ISS. "Unions" were developed in the 1960s in the USSR and were originally intended to fly around the moon with return to Earth. The first launch of the Soyuz ended in tragedy in 1967, when the cosmonaut Komarov died. After this, the ship's systems were substantially modified; now the Union is considered the safest spaceship. In the late 1970s, the Progress cargo ship was created on the basis of the Soyuz.
"Union" consists of three compartments:
In the upper compartment, the astronauts sleep and rest during a long, up to 2-3 days, flight to the ISS. There is also a space toilet, which works on the principle of a vacuum cleaner. The middle compartment is also a descent vehicle in which astronauts return to Earth (upper and lower compartments burn up in the atmosphere).
During take-off, the astronauts lie in the embryo position so that overloads reaching 8 g act from the chest to the back. The hull is made of aluminum alloy in the form of an aerodynamic headlight. Outside, the middle compartment is protected by a heat shield.
On the simulator, the astronauts work out the process of controlling the Soyuz spacecraft from launch from Earth to docking with the station. It simulates the approach, approach, docking, undocking, communication with the ISS, putting it into orbit, descent from orbit and landing with the final operations.
Here, the expert commission takes exams.
Cosmonauts are prepared for all possible flight scenarios, so the body of each applicant is subjected to various difficult tests. The Center uses flying laboratories, centrifuges, hydraulic laboratories, pressure chambers, sound chambers, heat chambers for this.
Readiness for overloads is brought up in future astronauts using a centrifuge. The Center operates a TsF-18 centrifuge, which can create overloads in the range from 1 to 30 g with the orientation of the overload vector in any given direction, with adjustment in a wide range of temperature, pressure, humidity and gas composition inside the cabin. The centrifuge rotates at an insane speed reaching 70 rpm. An untrained person may lose consciousness. The weight of the entire structure reaches 305 tons.
Upon entering the dense layers of the atmosphere, the descent vehicle heats up to a thousand degrees, so the astronaut's spacesuits are equipped with a temperature control system. But if she suddenly refuses, the body must be ready for elevated temperatures. Therefore, to prepare for the descent, the astronauts pass a test with a heat chamber. They are placed for 1 hour in a sauna with a temperature of 100 degrees and a humidity of 50%. For example, a record for being in a sauna at 110 degrees is 17 minutes.
Landing of the descent vehicle usually occurs exactly according to the flight plan. But there are emergency situations, and a small inaccuracy in the operation of the systems can lead to a deviation of a couple of thousand kilometers. The device can land in any climate zone of the Earth, in the desert, forest, ocean, so the astronauts have a portable emergency reserve, which is always in the descent capsule. This includes flashlights, a first aid kit, a smoke rocket, a walkie-talkie, a whistle to scare off sharks, endless matches, a titanium saw for sawing trees. Previously, the kit also included a special pistol with 3 barrels: one barrel is a rocket launcher, the second for small fractions, the third for large buckshot. The pistol appeared in emergency reserve after the landing of Leonov and Belyaev in the taiga, when they were searched for 2 days (this is shown in the wonderful film "Time of the First").
Once a year, candidates for astronauts are landed in the taiga, desert or ocean with a similar emergency supply of provisions and equipment. Objective: to survive for several days and get to the camp, where they will find help.
We pass further into the hall with a full-size model of the Mir orbital station.
The Mira modules were previously used to prepare astronauts for work on the ISS. Now this hall already has historical significance, here we learned about life inside the station, about the details of cosmic life and work in space.
There is no shower at the station, so cosmonauts wipe with wet towels. Once, a shower cabin was delivered to Mir station, but due to the lack of gravity, soap and water stuck to the body, and the astronauts had to wipe themselves and the cabin. As a result, our guys remade the shower into a sauna, and they even delivered brooms to orbit. But as a result, due to sudden changes in temperature, without sufficiently effective ventilation and drying, a fungus appeared at the station, so they decided to abandon the shower cabins. Actually, an inactivated fungus at Mir station, whose spores under zero gravity pose a threat to the crew’s life, has become one of the reasons for the station’s withdrawal from orbit.
The astronauts wash their hair with dry shampoo, which must be rubbed into the hair and scalp, and then wiped with a damp towel. Toothpaste is swallowed, because in zero gravity it is impossible to spit because of the surrounding equipment and ventilation system. Also, due to the lack of gravity, there is no pressure in the bladder, so a person simply does not feel it is full, and astronauts need to visit the toilet every 3 hours so that there are no incidents.
There are no washing machines at the station, therefore, after unloading the arriving Progress, dirty clothes and other garbage are simply loaded into ships, which, when undocked, burn up in dense layers of the atmosphere, nothing remains in orbit.
Space food. All food is sublimated (dehydrated) products that are diluted with water. Eat through a tube or spoon every 3 hours. Jars are heated in the oven.
Food is no longer produced in tubes due to inconvenience of transportation and severity of packaging. The weight of one tube is 160 grams, and the weight of a freeze-dried bag is 40 grams. Only the sauces, condiments and honey remained in the tubes. The second dishes are in cans. Almost everything is sublimated: soups, salads, cereals, juice, desserts. Astronauts are excellently fed, their diet can be made from a menu of 215 dishes. 3 months before the launch, the astronauts begin to eat exclusively space food, choose what products they would like to see in orbit. Make your own list, after that an individual 16-day diet is formed for them, which will not be repeated. It is curious that the taste buds under microgravity conditions change due to changes in the circulatory process, and therefore the perception of food changes. For example, sour can become sweet, and vice versa, therefore, astronauts in orbit often change food with each other. The astronaut’s daily intake should be at least 3,000 kilocalories, only 5 meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and between them two snacks.
Each country brings its own food. Foreigners really like our cottage cheese with nuts, only we do this, so our astronauts use it as a currency at the station and can exchange the cottage cheese for any equipment they need.
The Falcon spacesuit is a Soviet space spacesuit worn by all the astronauts on board the ship. Over decades, spacesuits have evolved very much, now there is even a special roller inside to scratch your nose. The growth of the astronauts can now be up to 190 cm, but the sitting height should not be more than 99 cm, this restriction is set by the dimensions of the Kazbek anti-reload chair, on which the astronaut lies. And the dimensions of the chair itself are dictated by the available volume in the lander. For the correct distribution of the load over the entire surface of the body, the lodgement under the chair is cast individually, according to the plaster cast of the astronaut’s back.
Gloves on spacesuits are signed so as not to confuse theirs with a stranger - each spacesuit is created by the individual standards of the astronaut. In the photo - “space suit” Lazutkina A.I. (LAI).
ISS layout, scale 1:50.
The ISS has been operating since 1998. It was previously planned that the station will fly until 2020, now the deadline has been extended to 2024. The design of the ISS is assembled on a modular basis. Such a big Lego for adults (for very large adults). Outdated modules, or blocks, are disconnected and heated in the ocean, new ones are put in their place. In total, 23 countries are participating in the project. This is the most expensive construction of all existing in the world, according to various estimates, the cost of the ISS exceeds $ 100-150 billion.
The Center also has an exact copy of the ISS Russian segment, here the astronauts are preparing to fulfill their mission. Each astronaut has a scientific program that he must carry out in space. The hall also takes exams for mastery of work skills at the station.
An open set of astronauts announces Roscosmos. The first such set was held in October 2012, the second - in August 2018. The set takes place in two stages: correspondence and full-time. Of the 420 applicants in 2018, 27 people were able to enter the second round (among them only one woman), as a result, 8 people, all men, took the training course. Of the 8 people recruited in 2012, two have already left the squad, the remaining 6 have not yet flown. In June 2019, Roscosmos announced the third open recruitment for astronauts. This time, more active participation of the girls is expected, according to Rogozin, in order to balance the squad, which has recently become “too masculine”. Now there is only one girl Anna Kikina in the cosmonaut squad, and we just found her at a training session at the Center.
How is the selection? First, the submitted applications are analyzed. At this stage, nearly a quarter of applicants are eliminated. Anyone can send an application, there are no restrictions. But historically it happened that mostly cosmonauts come from pilots.
All past absentee rounds are waiting for face-to-face tests: checking physical training and interviews.
Checking physical fitness: running or skiing, swimming, pulling up, parallel bars, speed and shuttle running, trampolining, diving, a treadmill on the simulator on board the station.
They check the level of education: exams in mathematics, physics, computer technology, English, cultural studies are passed, a dictation in Russian is written.
Professional suitability is checked: knowledge of the history of world and domestic astronautics, the fundamentals of manned space exploration, determination of the ability to study space technology, test work (testing using technical means).
Then a psychological interview takes place.
Engineering skills are also checked: it is necessary to study the manual on one of the on-board systems of a manned spacecraft and tell the examiners how they work. The deadline is 1 day.
Those who went through the face-to-face tour are waiting for a two-year course of general space training. Then you need to pass exams and get qualified. And only after that, perhaps, the astronaut will fall into the crew and go into space. The total training period for the astronaut is 10 years.
One of the most difficult exams is the test of silence and loneliness. During the exam, the future astronaut is placed in a completely isolated sound chamber for 3 days. All this time, a person without sleep performs tests and exercises, without any connection with the outside world. Just before our arrival at the Center, such exams passed, and all 8 candidates for astronauts successfully coped with them.
Current class schedule of astronauts. The call signs of the listeners asked us not to show. Classes at the astronauts begin at 9 a.m. and continue until 6 p.m.
Now there are 25 people in the Russian cosmonaut corps. Of these, 12 people do not have space flight experience, some have been waiting their turn for 13 years. The Russian crew on the ISS consists of two people, that is, only one astronaut, the commander of the Soyuz spacecraft, flies to the station every shift. Only experienced astronauts who have already flown to the ISS are assigned to fly. So, on July 20, 2019 Skvortsov A.A should fly, this will be his third flight to the station.
Candidates from the 2018 recruitment, at best, will be able to fly to the ISS in 2022–2024. In reality, most likely, they will fly in 2028–2030, probably on the new Russian Federation ship. And they will prepare for flights to the moon and to Mars.
We could not resist and asked what salary the astronauts had. So, the candidate for astronauts receives 60 thousand rubles. The astronaut who came to the detachment had a salary of 110 thousand rubles. The astronauts of the first class (three flights) and the second class (two flights) - 300 thousand. The average salary is 170 thousand rubles. Most of our astronauts earn when they are in space, for 6 months in orbit, their earnings can be from 130 to 150 thousand dollars.
At the same time, the astronaut is the most expensive profession in the world. Today, the cost of one year of training an astronaut costs about $ 55 million.
At the end of our excursion, in the parking lot of the Center, we met the acting cosmonaut Andrei Ivanovich Borisenko, cosmonaut of the Russian cosmos. He flew on the ISS twice, in 2012 and 2016.
Astronauts' cars are given a special series of state numbers. In the 1980s, they were given registration signs with the Moscow Region letters of IMO and numbers corresponding to the astronaut’s number according to the Russian classification. So, astronaut No. 50 Viktor Savinykh after the flight received the sign “0050 MMO”. The letter code was near Moscow because it was doing the traffic police of Star City, to which all the astronauts were assigned. After the transition to the Russian car registration system, the tradition has been preserved. Only the numbers became three, and the letters turned into TSR. So, Andrei Ivanovich has a “T110MP” sign on a car. In total, 122 cosmonauts from Russia and the USSR have visited space today.
* * *
On July 20, the next manned launch of the Soyuz spacecraft will take place. We wish the astronauts a successful start and flight, and from the winner of our competition we are waiting for the reporting post about the trip to Baikonur :) In the meantime, you can take part in the new RUVDS prize drawing, details on the site .
The closest was Vlad vvzvlad , on July 20 he will go to Baikonur to see the launch of the Soyuz manned spacecraft.
The prize for 3rd place was a participation in a group excursion to the Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City. Last Friday, we were able to get there, now we are sharing our knowledge about training astronauts, how to get into the squad, and is it possible to become an astronaut at all in our time?
A bit of information about Star City. This is a closed city (approximately 6000 inhabitants), here is the only Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia. All cosmonauts, including foreign ones, undergo pre-flight preparation for the flight to the ISS here. Many astronauts in Star City not only work, but also live.
The center was created in 1960 to prepare a person for space flight, then the town was called Zeleniy, it is located near the city of Shchelkovo, 25 km from Moscow.
Our tour began at the Star City checkpoint. An individual tour at the Center cannot be booked; only a group tour through agencies is acquired. At the same time, we ordered a tour for 2 months, before there were no empty seats. 2 weeks before arrival, a list of participants must be submitted, for foreigners 45 days in advance. The document goes through several approvals, we counted 9 signatures and seals on our entry sheet. Before entering the standard check of documents, and we get to the Center.
First, we are escorted to the Soyuz spacecraft hall, here are full-size mock-ups of the ships, on which before, and now the astronauts enter orbit and reach the ISS. "Unions" were developed in the 1960s in the USSR and were originally intended to fly around the moon with return to Earth. The first launch of the Soyuz ended in tragedy in 1967, when the cosmonaut Komarov died. After this, the ship's systems were substantially modified; now the Union is considered the safest spaceship. In the late 1970s, the Progress cargo ship was created on the basis of the Soyuz.
"Union" consists of three compartments:
- Lower, instrument-and-assembly compartment - this is where the soft landing engine, braking engines, solar panels, fuel tanks are located. It is not used for simulators, its weight reaches 7 tons.
- The middle compartment is the command module. This is a sealed compartment in which the crew has been since the launch of the ship.
- The upper, household compartment, with the docking station, accommodates loads that the astronauts carry with them to the ISS. They cannot take more than 1 kilogram of personal items. By the way, when Progress cargo ships are sent to the ISS, personal packages for astronauts are put at the very end so that they first unload all the cargo brought in, and only then can they reach the desired packages.
In the upper compartment, the astronauts sleep and rest during a long, up to 2-3 days, flight to the ISS. There is also a space toilet, which works on the principle of a vacuum cleaner. The middle compartment is also a descent vehicle in which astronauts return to Earth (upper and lower compartments burn up in the atmosphere).
During take-off, the astronauts lie in the embryo position so that overloads reaching 8 g act from the chest to the back. The hull is made of aluminum alloy in the form of an aerodynamic headlight. Outside, the middle compartment is protected by a heat shield.
On the simulator, the astronauts work out the process of controlling the Soyuz spacecraft from launch from Earth to docking with the station. It simulates the approach, approach, docking, undocking, communication with the ISS, putting it into orbit, descent from orbit and landing with the final operations.
Here, the expert commission takes exams.
The tests that the astronauts pass
Cosmonauts are prepared for all possible flight scenarios, so the body of each applicant is subjected to various difficult tests. The Center uses flying laboratories, centrifuges, hydraulic laboratories, pressure chambers, sound chambers, heat chambers for this.
▍Centrifuge
Readiness for overloads is brought up in future astronauts using a centrifuge. The Center operates a TsF-18 centrifuge, which can create overloads in the range from 1 to 30 g with the orientation of the overload vector in any given direction, with adjustment in a wide range of temperature, pressure, humidity and gas composition inside the cabin. The centrifuge rotates at an insane speed reaching 70 rpm. An untrained person may lose consciousness. The weight of the entire structure reaches 305 tons.
▍ Thermocamera
Upon entering the dense layers of the atmosphere, the descent vehicle heats up to a thousand degrees, so the astronaut's spacesuits are equipped with a temperature control system. But if she suddenly refuses, the body must be ready for elevated temperatures. Therefore, to prepare for the descent, the astronauts pass a test with a heat chamber. They are placed for 1 hour in a sauna with a temperature of 100 degrees and a humidity of 50%. For example, a record for being in a sauna at 110 degrees is 17 minutes.
▍ Survival Tests
Landing of the descent vehicle usually occurs exactly according to the flight plan. But there are emergency situations, and a small inaccuracy in the operation of the systems can lead to a deviation of a couple of thousand kilometers. The device can land in any climate zone of the Earth, in the desert, forest, ocean, so the astronauts have a portable emergency reserve, which is always in the descent capsule. This includes flashlights, a first aid kit, a smoke rocket, a walkie-talkie, a whistle to scare off sharks, endless matches, a titanium saw for sawing trees. Previously, the kit also included a special pistol with 3 barrels: one barrel is a rocket launcher, the second for small fractions, the third for large buckshot. The pistol appeared in emergency reserve after the landing of Leonov and Belyaev in the taiga, when they were searched for 2 days (this is shown in the wonderful film "Time of the First").
Once a year, candidates for astronauts are landed in the taiga, desert or ocean with a similar emergency supply of provisions and equipment. Objective: to survive for several days and get to the camp, where they will find help.
We pass further into the hall with a full-size model of the Mir orbital station.
The Mira modules were previously used to prepare astronauts for work on the ISS. Now this hall already has historical significance, here we learned about life inside the station, about the details of cosmic life and work in space.
There is no shower at the station, so cosmonauts wipe with wet towels. Once, a shower cabin was delivered to Mir station, but due to the lack of gravity, soap and water stuck to the body, and the astronauts had to wipe themselves and the cabin. As a result, our guys remade the shower into a sauna, and they even delivered brooms to orbit. But as a result, due to sudden changes in temperature, without sufficiently effective ventilation and drying, a fungus appeared at the station, so they decided to abandon the shower cabins. Actually, an inactivated fungus at Mir station, whose spores under zero gravity pose a threat to the crew’s life, has become one of the reasons for the station’s withdrawal from orbit.
The astronauts wash their hair with dry shampoo, which must be rubbed into the hair and scalp, and then wiped with a damp towel. Toothpaste is swallowed, because in zero gravity it is impossible to spit because of the surrounding equipment and ventilation system. Also, due to the lack of gravity, there is no pressure in the bladder, so a person simply does not feel it is full, and astronauts need to visit the toilet every 3 hours so that there are no incidents.
There are no washing machines at the station, therefore, after unloading the arriving Progress, dirty clothes and other garbage are simply loaded into ships, which, when undocked, burn up in dense layers of the atmosphere, nothing remains in orbit.
Space food. All food is sublimated (dehydrated) products that are diluted with water. Eat through a tube or spoon every 3 hours. Jars are heated in the oven.
Food is no longer produced in tubes due to inconvenience of transportation and severity of packaging. The weight of one tube is 160 grams, and the weight of a freeze-dried bag is 40 grams. Only the sauces, condiments and honey remained in the tubes. The second dishes are in cans. Almost everything is sublimated: soups, salads, cereals, juice, desserts. Astronauts are excellently fed, their diet can be made from a menu of 215 dishes. 3 months before the launch, the astronauts begin to eat exclusively space food, choose what products they would like to see in orbit. Make your own list, after that an individual 16-day diet is formed for them, which will not be repeated. It is curious that the taste buds under microgravity conditions change due to changes in the circulatory process, and therefore the perception of food changes. For example, sour can become sweet, and vice versa, therefore, astronauts in orbit often change food with each other. The astronaut’s daily intake should be at least 3,000 kilocalories, only 5 meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and between them two snacks.
Each country brings its own food. Foreigners really like our cottage cheese with nuts, only we do this, so our astronauts use it as a currency at the station and can exchange the cottage cheese for any equipment they need.
The Falcon spacesuit is a Soviet space spacesuit worn by all the astronauts on board the ship. Over decades, spacesuits have evolved very much, now there is even a special roller inside to scratch your nose. The growth of the astronauts can now be up to 190 cm, but the sitting height should not be more than 99 cm, this restriction is set by the dimensions of the Kazbek anti-reload chair, on which the astronaut lies. And the dimensions of the chair itself are dictated by the available volume in the lander. For the correct distribution of the load over the entire surface of the body, the lodgement under the chair is cast individually, according to the plaster cast of the astronaut’s back.
Gloves on spacesuits are signed so as not to confuse theirs with a stranger - each spacesuit is created by the individual standards of the astronaut. In the photo - “space suit” Lazutkina A.I. (LAI).
ISS layout, scale 1:50.
The ISS has been operating since 1998. It was previously planned that the station will fly until 2020, now the deadline has been extended to 2024. The design of the ISS is assembled on a modular basis. Such a big Lego for adults (for very large adults). Outdated modules, or blocks, are disconnected and heated in the ocean, new ones are put in their place. In total, 23 countries are participating in the project. This is the most expensive construction of all existing in the world, according to various estimates, the cost of the ISS exceeds $ 100-150 billion.
The Center also has an exact copy of the ISS Russian segment, here the astronauts are preparing to fulfill their mission. Each astronaut has a scientific program that he must carry out in space. The hall also takes exams for mastery of work skills at the station.
How is training in astronauts
An open set of astronauts announces Roscosmos. The first such set was held in October 2012, the second - in August 2018. The set takes place in two stages: correspondence and full-time. Of the 420 applicants in 2018, 27 people were able to enter the second round (among them only one woman), as a result, 8 people, all men, took the training course. Of the 8 people recruited in 2012, two have already left the squad, the remaining 6 have not yet flown. In June 2019, Roscosmos announced the third open recruitment for astronauts. This time, more active participation of the girls is expected, according to Rogozin, in order to balance the squad, which has recently become “too masculine”. Now there is only one girl Anna Kikina in the cosmonaut squad, and we just found her at a training session at the Center.
How is the selection? First, the submitted applications are analyzed. At this stage, nearly a quarter of applicants are eliminated. Anyone can send an application, there are no restrictions. But historically it happened that mostly cosmonauts come from pilots.
All past absentee rounds are waiting for face-to-face tests: checking physical training and interviews.
Checking physical fitness: running or skiing, swimming, pulling up, parallel bars, speed and shuttle running, trampolining, diving, a treadmill on the simulator on board the station.
They check the level of education: exams in mathematics, physics, computer technology, English, cultural studies are passed, a dictation in Russian is written.
Professional suitability is checked: knowledge of the history of world and domestic astronautics, the fundamentals of manned space exploration, determination of the ability to study space technology, test work (testing using technical means).
Then a psychological interview takes place.
Engineering skills are also checked: it is necessary to study the manual on one of the on-board systems of a manned spacecraft and tell the examiners how they work. The deadline is 1 day.
Those who went through the face-to-face tour are waiting for a two-year course of general space training. Then you need to pass exams and get qualified. And only after that, perhaps, the astronaut will fall into the crew and go into space. The total training period for the astronaut is 10 years.
One of the most difficult exams is the test of silence and loneliness. During the exam, the future astronaut is placed in a completely isolated sound chamber for 3 days. All this time, a person without sleep performs tests and exercises, without any connection with the outside world. Just before our arrival at the Center, such exams passed, and all 8 candidates for astronauts successfully coped with them.
Current class schedule of astronauts. The call signs of the listeners asked us not to show. Classes at the astronauts begin at 9 a.m. and continue until 6 p.m.
Now there are 25 people in the Russian cosmonaut corps. Of these, 12 people do not have space flight experience, some have been waiting their turn for 13 years. The Russian crew on the ISS consists of two people, that is, only one astronaut, the commander of the Soyuz spacecraft, flies to the station every shift. Only experienced astronauts who have already flown to the ISS are assigned to fly. So, on July 20, 2019 Skvortsov A.A should fly, this will be his third flight to the station.
Candidates from the 2018 recruitment, at best, will be able to fly to the ISS in 2022–2024. In reality, most likely, they will fly in 2028–2030, probably on the new Russian Federation ship. And they will prepare for flights to the moon and to Mars.
How much do astronauts earn
We could not resist and asked what salary the astronauts had. So, the candidate for astronauts receives 60 thousand rubles. The astronaut who came to the detachment had a salary of 110 thousand rubles. The astronauts of the first class (three flights) and the second class (two flights) - 300 thousand. The average salary is 170 thousand rubles. Most of our astronauts earn when they are in space, for 6 months in orbit, their earnings can be from 130 to 150 thousand dollars.
At the same time, the astronaut is the most expensive profession in the world. Today, the cost of one year of training an astronaut costs about $ 55 million.
At the end of our excursion, in the parking lot of the Center, we met the acting cosmonaut Andrei Ivanovich Borisenko, cosmonaut of the Russian cosmos. He flew on the ISS twice, in 2012 and 2016.
Astronauts' cars are given a special series of state numbers. In the 1980s, they were given registration signs with the Moscow Region letters of IMO and numbers corresponding to the astronaut’s number according to the Russian classification. So, astronaut No. 50 Viktor Savinykh after the flight received the sign “0050 MMO”. The letter code was near Moscow because it was doing the traffic police of Star City, to which all the astronauts were assigned. After the transition to the Russian car registration system, the tradition has been preserved. Only the numbers became three, and the letters turned into TSR. So, Andrei Ivanovich has a “T110MP” sign on a car. In total, 122 cosmonauts from Russia and the USSR have visited space today.
* * *
On July 20, the next manned launch of the Soyuz spacecraft will take place. We wish the astronauts a successful start and flight, and from the winner of our competition we are waiting for the reporting post about the trip to Baikonur :) In the meantime, you can take part in the new RUVDS prize drawing, details on the site .