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Inside Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

The history of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center begins in 1960 when it was decided to establish a first-ever training facility to prepare people for space voyages

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The International Space Station Expedition 51/52 crew members, Russian cosmonaut Fedor Yurchikhin and NASA astronaut Jack Fischer preparing for training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre (GCTC)

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Key GCTC facilities include full-size mockups of all major spacecraft developed since the Soviet era, zero-gravity training aircraft for simulating weightlessness, centrifuges and centrifuge-based simulators used for improving cosmonauts’ g-tolerance capabilities

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

The world's largest centrifuge is CF-18 centrifuge at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

It's rotating arm is 18 meters

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

CF-7 centrifuge was developed and put in operation in 1973. The radius of it's rotation is 7 meters

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Both centrifuges are used for simulating g-loads during all the stages of space flight in cosmonaut's training and for cosmonaut selection

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Orlan MK-T space suit

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Inside the full-size mockup of Mir Space Station

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

TDK-7ST3 simulator designed to train crews for piloting Soyuz-TMA spacecraft

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

TDK-7ST3 simulator is built using full-size mock-ups of habitable compartments of the Soyuz spacecraft

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Full-size mockup of Mir Space Station

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Read also

Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space

The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) is a Russian facility responsible for training cosmonauts for their space missions. It is located in Star City, known in Russia as Zvezdniy Gorodok, a closed town 50 km from Moscow, where the legendary cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin trained for the first human spaceflight. The center is run by the Russian Federal Space Agency.

The history of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center begins on 11th of January 1960 when it was decided to establish a first-ever training facility intended to prepare people for space voyages. The center has seen a lot of outstanding and exciting events afterwards: from the flight of the first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova to the first spacewalk by Alexey Leonov.

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