Less than a month is left before the launch of the "Soyuz MS-12" spacecraft. Yesterday at the GCTC was the second day of complex examination exercises, based on which will be decided to continue preflight crew training at the Baikonur cosmodrome. Encouraged by the “excellent” grade for the first examination training on the ISS, the main crew of the ISS-59/60 began today the final day of testing on the "Soyuz" spacecraft simulator. At the end of exams of the main crew of the ISS-59/60 the commission summarized the results of the second exam day.

The main crew of the ISS approached the most important stage of preparation at the GCTC - the complex exam training. During the examination session, the commission assesses the actions of the crew in the work with the equipment and life support systems at the station. The exam result also determines the reaction of future participants of a long expedition to emergency situations. The crew must timely detect the failure or mismatch of the ISS systems, determine the nature of the incident and promptly make a decision to get out of this situation. From the quality of their actions depends the score for the exam day.

On February 15, the GCTC was visited by the delegation of the Italian Embassy, headed by the Italian Ambassador in Russia Pasquale Terracciano. During the visit, the development of cooperation between the Italian Air Force and the Cosmonaut Training Center was discussed. During the excursion, Pasquale Terracciano and the embassy staff visited the halls of "Soyuz" spacecraft, Russian segment of the ISS, Space Center, "Exit-2" simulators and the "CF-18" centrifuge.

Having successfully passed the exams on manual control of transport manned and cargo spaceships, the main crew of the ISS this Monday continued to pass the "space" exams. The working week of "Soyuz MS-12" commander Alexey Ovchinin and flight engineer Nick Hague began with the manual-controlled descent exam on the TC-7 simulator, based on the CF-7 centrifuge base. Taking into account that Alexey and Nick passed such exam on the Soyuz spacecraft several months ago as part of "Soyuz MS-10" crew training, the high level of their knowledge and skills during the training was rated by the commission as “excellent”. The examination week of the main crew of the ISS continued with a test of knowledge of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. The two-week training sessions for the main crew of the ISS were the final training for the complex exams, which are to be held by Alexey Ovchinin, Nick Hague and Christina Koch after one week.

Despite the strong wind and snow, not only the Star City residents and the staff of the GCTC came to greet the crew of the 56/57 expedition to the ISS, but also the leaders of the rocket and space industry enterprises, as well as the ambassadors of the United States and Germany in Russia John Huntsman and Rüdiger von Fritsch. The crew members of the "Soyuz MS-09" (call name "Altai") Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopiev, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor returned to Earth safely on December 20, 2018 after performing a 196-day flight. Ambassadors of the United States and Germany, representatives of related organizations of the rocket and space industry, foreign space agencies, municipalities and other associations, cosmonauts colleagues warmly welcomed the crew, handing memorable addresses and gifts. At the end of the meeting, the crew of the ISS-56/57 thanks all those, who were involved in their flight.

The management of the GCTC, under the leadership of the head of the Center Pavel Vlasov, met with the delegation of the Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research Institute) (MAI) under the leadership of Rector Mikhail Pogosyan to discuss the possibilities and areas for further cooperation. The main objective of the meeting held in the GCTC was to increase the level of training, conduct joint research and improve the training and test base. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to establish working groups for the development of a “roadmap” of cooperation. MAI is a leader among civilian universities in the number of graduates, who have become cosmonauts and specialists in the rocket and space industry.

Today, at the GCTC has completed experimental studies on the development of interactions between the cosmonaut and the anthropomorphic robot, which is controlled in a teleoperator mode. The goal was to develop a standard technique, that could be further replicated for various studies. The experiment equipment includes a screen, a projector, automated workplaces of the experiment support team. Now it is exploring an anthropomorphic robot, created by the NPO "Android Technics", with which the GCTC has been cooperating for a long time. But in the future, the interaction of cosmonauts with any other space robots will be tested here.

A quarter of a century ago, on February 3, 1994, the "Discovery" shuttle was launched under the STS-60 program. It is significant, because for the first time a Russian cosmonaut flew on an American spacecraft. It was Sergey Krikalev, for whom STS-60 was the third expedition in his career. The flight duration was 8 days 7 hours. STS-60 went down in history as the first joint Russian-American launch.

In the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center the meeting of the Main Medical Commission ended, which analyzed the data of medical examinations of Alexey Ovchinin - the commander of the main crew of the "Soyuz MS-12" spaceship. According to the results of the meeting of the commission, the cosmonaut of Roscosmos, Alexey Ovchinin, was found fit for the space flight for health reasons. The backup crew commander, Alexander Skvortsov, was recognized as fit for the space flight by the decision of the commission, which met on October 26, 2018.

The training of cosmonauts and astronauts on the actions after landing in a wooded area in winter starts in Star City. The task is to spend two days in the forest in conditions, close to those, in which the crew of the "Voskhod-2" ship (Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev) were in March 1965 In total, this time in the GCTC will be "winter survival" of seven crews. The training is conducted by the GCTC test and training team, which consists of instructors, doctors, psychologists and other specialists.