MAI branded rocket launched from Baikonur
On September 21, at 16:55 (Moscow), “Soyuz-2.1a” carrier rocket with the logo of Moscow Aviation Institute on it was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The rocket delivered manned spacecraft (“Soyuz MS-22”) named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky into orbit with the crew of the ISS 68th long-term expedition on board. One of the crewmembers is the graduate student of MAI, cosmonaut of Roscosmos Dmitry Petelin. Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio also participate in the flight.
Dmitry Petelin will not be the only MAI resident on the ISS. According to the plan in October MAI graduate student Anna Kikina will arrive at the space station, and in spring another graduate student of the university, Nikolay Chub, will join the crew. Three MAI residents will work on the ISS simultaneously. In total, there are 23 cosmonaut pilots among MAI graduates, which is a record number for civilian universities. Currently, there are 25 cosmonauts in the Roscosmos cosmonaut squadron, three of them are MAI graduates, five more are graduate students.On the day of the launch, the event with the broadcast was carried out at the MAI Palace of Culture and Technology, and it gathered more than 1,000 spectators. The special guest attended the event – Russian cosmonaut, Hero of the Russian Federation, MAI graduate – Fedor Yurchikhin. He told the audience about his experience, answered questions, and also commented on the launch process. You can find out which space food is the most delicious, at what second of the flight the transition to weightlessness occurs and whether those who experience nausea on the bus are brought to the fold as cosmonauts via the link.Roscosmos enlisted MAI among the main universities of the rocket and space industry of Russia in May this year. Earlier, MAI and "Corporate Academy of Roscosmos State Corporation" signed the agreement on cooperation. It provides for the joint development and improvement of educational programs for employees of the rocket and space industry, as well as the export of educational services in space science and technology and the development of innovations in the educational sphere.MAI also cooperates with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center actively. Among the areas of collaboration there are joint implementation of basic educational programs, advanced training programs, and scientific work. So, as part of the joint work, a virtual reality complex is being created, designed for the training of cosmonauts and various applied research and experiments. For example, this complex will help to simulate complicated tasks like the flight to Mars or landing on the Moon.Read more about how MAI helps to fulfill the dream of stars in our material.
