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27Jan22

NASA says it’s happy to host Russian cosmonauts for training

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it was looking forward to hosting Russian cosmonauts for training at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, a NASA representative said on Thursday.

The representative made the remarks in response to a request from TASS to comment on the difficulties that Russia’s Nikolay Chub faced recently in obtaining a US visa for the scheduled training.

Roscosmos said on January 22 that the United States’ refusal to issue a visa to Chub raised a question over his safety during his 2023 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the Russian space corporation, the cosmonaut needed a US visa for a five-week session to learn about the US segment of the space station.

On Monday, Roscosmos said Chub received a visa. Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said Anna Kikina, also received a visa.

Foreign astronauts usually get training sessions at Russia’s Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center located in Zvyozdny Gorodok (or Star City) outside Moscow, while Russian cosmonauts train at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, obtaining knowledge about the Russian and US segments of the ISS respectively. Training sessions are held regardless of what spacecraft is planned to be used to deliver cosmonauts and astronauts to orbit.

Chub is a member of the backup crew for the ISS Expedition 68, scheduled to travel to the orbital outpost aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft in September. He is also part of the main crew of the Expedition 69 that will be delivered to the ISS by a Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft in the spring of 2023.

[Source: Tass, New York, 27Jan22]
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