The main crew of the ISS approached the most important stage of preparation at the GCTC – the complex exam training.

This morning, the crew – Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch started the exam on the simulator of the Russian segment of the International Space Station.

“Our crew is still good. Now it has been strengthened by Christina Koch, and this time we will perform everything, – the commander of the “Soyuz MS” ship Alexey Ovchinin is sure. – Cristina is not so long ago in our crew, but she showed herself to be a competent flight engineer-2 of the ship and works fine on the station too. We were looking forward to the start of the exams and feel the strength to show a good result.”

Traditionally, complex training began with the report of the crew commander to the members of the examination committee on readiness for testing.

Having pulled out a ticket with abnormal situations listed in it, and having received instructions from the examiners, the crew went to the ISS simulator.

Recall, that last week the crew had a “final check of the exam” for knowledge of the Russian segment of the ISS – the so-called “Typical Flight Day”.

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.