Four MAI graduate students were awarded Gold Star Medals of the Hero of the Russian Federation

Four graduate students of Moscow Aviation Institute – cosmonauts of Roscosmos Sergey Korsakov, Anna Kikina, Andrey Fedyaev and Dmitry Petelin – were awarded the most honorable award – the Gold Star Medal of the Hero of the Russian Federation. The awards were presented on May 30 by President Vladimir Putin in the Catherine Hall of the Kremlin.

The awarded cosmonauts study at the graduate school of MAI Institute No. 6 “Aerospace”. They worked on the ISS between the spring of 2022 and the fall of 2023.

Anna Kikina became the first Russian cosmonaut to fly into orbit on Crew Dragon (SpaceX). Dmitry Petelin, together with Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopiev and American astronaut Frank Rubio, set a record for the longest stay of a crew on the International Space Station in September 2023. He worked in orbit for 371 days instead of the planned six months.