Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center

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Coordinates: 55°52′28″N 38°06′54″E / 55.8745°N 38.115°E / 55.8745; 38.115

The Yu.A.Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) (Russian: Российский Государственный Научно-Исследовательский Испытательный Центр Подготовки Космонавтов (РГНИИЦПК) им. Ю. А. Гагарина, Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvenny Nauchno-Issledovatelsky Ispytatelny Tsentr Podgotovki Kosmonavtov (RGNIITsPK) im. Yu. S. Gagarina) is responsible for training cosmonauts for their space missions, and is the home of the largest of three cosmonauts' units in Russia, with more than half of Russian cosmonauts.

Until April 2009 the center was owned and operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense in cooperation with Russian Federal Space Agency. On April 2009, Russian President signed a presidential decree transferring the center from the Defence Ministry to the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos)^[1]

The Cosmonaut Training Center was inaugurated on January 11, 1960 in Star City outside Moscow. In 1969 it was named after Yuri Gagarin, the first man to fly in space. In 1995 the Cosmonaut Training Center and Air Force Test and Training regiment were merged and reorganized into its current form.

The Center has also trained candidates from other countries of (or aligned to) the former Soviet bloc under the Intercosmos program, which got an initial boost from the joint Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz flight in 1975. The Intercosmos program later included staff members from other countries as well (France, India, etc.) and provided ground work for the next step in continued and ongoing cooperation between Russia and the United States in joint space missions and for cross-training of US astronauts on Russian hardware in the framework of the Space Shuttle-Mir and ISS programs.

Key GCTC facilities include:

• Full-size mockups of all major spacecraft developed since the Soviet era, including the Soyuz and Buran vehicles, the TKS modules and orbital stations of the Salyut Program, Mir, and ISS. These were coexisting or with time replaced one another inside two main training hangar halls of the Center.
• A water pool for simulating weightlessness (neutral buoyancy) for spacewalk training. In 1980 it was replaced with a larger hydrolaboratory building with a tank capable of accommodating a 20-ton space station module. The pool has depth of 12 m (39 ft), diameter of 23 m (75 ft) and capacity of 5,000 cubic metres (54,000 sq ft).
• Zero-gravity training aircraft for simulating weightlessness (cf. Vomit Comet), including the MiG-15 UTI, Tupolev Tu-104 and later the IL-76 MDK with internal volume of 400 cubic metres (4,300 sq ft). Training aircraft are based at the Russian Air Force base at Chkalovskiy airfield.
• Two centrifuges, a large TsF-18 and a smaller TsF-7, designed to simulate g-forces experienced during liftoff.
• A Medical observation clinic and testing facility.
• A planetarium built in East Germany, capable of projecting as many as 9,000 stars.
• The original office of Yuri Gagarin and a number of monuments and busts to him and other cosmonauts.

[edit] External links

• Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center
• Training aircraft at GCTC.

[edit] References

Cosmonauts training with the Zarya training module in the pool of the GCTC.	Mir training module	Soyuz TMA training module	The mouth of the centrifuge at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City.
Mother of all centrifuges - Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

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