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ISS Russian crewmembers readying for Earth gravity, checking their immunity

The astronauts are using the Chibis system, which imitates Earth gravity

MOSCOW, September 14 (Itar-Tass) —— ISS 32nd expedition commander Gennady Padalka (Russia) and his colleague Sergei Revin are preparing for the Earth gravity. They are due to return home aboard Soyuz TMA-04M together with NASA’s Joseph Acaba on September 17.

The astronauts are using the Chibis system, which imitates Earth gravity, the Cosmonaut Training Center told Itar-Tass on Friday.

“Six months in space are bad for muscles, so astronauts need to prepare their organisms for the return,” chief of the Cosmonaut Training Center medical team Irina Alfyorova said. Besides, two weeks before their return astronauts start taking special food supplements.

The landing capsule of the Soyuz TMA-04M manned spaceship carrying Gennady Padalka, Sergei Revin and Joseph Acaba is due to land in the Kazakh steppe at 6:53 a.m. Moscow time on September 17. Operative groups of the Federal Air Transport Agency led by Agency deputy head Alexander Vedernikov will welcome the astronauts back to the Earth. They will be accompanied by representatives of the Cosmonaut Training Center, the Energia Corporation, the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, NASA, the European Space Agency and some other organizations.

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