On September 17 Baikonur saw traditional “mass media day”. The journalists got the opportunity to see one day in the cosmonauts’ life at Baikonur spaceport before Soyuz TMA-14M launch .
According to the standard day plan the main crew of ISS-41/42 mission comprising Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyayev and Elena Serova and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore started working day at 11.00 local time ( 09.00, Moscow time) with Soyuz TMA-14M onboard documentation study while their back-up crew colleagues Roscosmos cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Korniyenko and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly passed the training on Soyuz TMA-M multipurpose training facility. Then the crews switched places. Both main and back-up crews practiced manual control of the spacecraft and docking with the station.
Every day the cosmonauts train on Coriolis effect chairs and pass hemodynamic trainings on tilt-table in accordance with the special scheme elaborated by GCTC to prepare the cosmonauts for space flight factors.
Sport is also of great importance for the cosmonauts. Under the strict doctor’s control the crews exercise using treadmill, cycle ergometer, weight machines etc to adapt their bodies for space flight factors impact. Spare time the cosmonauts devote to chess, tennis darts and billiards. The dayfinished with a long standing tradition: during the walk Elena Serova who goes to space for the first time in her life planted a tree at the Cosmonauts Alley. This remarkable tradition was started by Yuri Gagarin, since then every cosmonaut plants his personal tree before his first space flight.
GCTC operational crew specialists supervise all studies and trainings the cosmonauts take part in.
