Yesterday, October 5, the SpaceX Crew Dargon arrived at the ISS. For the first time, a woman cosmonaut from Russia, Anna Kikina, was on the SpaceX ship.
This was made possible thanks to the cross-flight program: a Russian cosmonaut flies on SpaceX, an American astronaut flies on a Soyuz rocket.
Now everything you need to know about Anna Kikina.
From radio presenters to astronauts
Anna Kikina Worked as a radio host and program director until 2012 at Radio Siberia, in the editorial office broadcasting in Gorno-Altaisk.
The girl who prepared the news for the radio station said that Roskosmos opened a recruitment for the cosmonaut corps among people.
At first I took it as a joke, and we joked that we would fly soon.
Anna Kikina
But then Anna Kikina opened the website of Roskosmos and the election, which is a real competition. Then, at her request, she passed the selection and became an astronaut.
Anna Kikina at Roscosmos training in 2013.
Astronaut candidates must meet the following criteria: He has a higher technical education, 3 years of work experience in his specialty, good health and advanced training.
It may seem so easy, but in reality it turned out to be an outstanding event. When I learned about the recruitment operation, I first of all analyzed the requirements for the applicant. It turns out that in all the parameters of the selection I came up. Then it was necessary to collect a package of documents and work closely. After all, after an absentee hearing, they invite you to a full-time meeting at the Cosmonaut Training Center, which means that you need to remember physics, mathematics, improve English and Russian, study the history of astronautics, the basics and study of the movement of space objects. At the aptitude test there were also questions on general outlook, erudition, the challenge of literature, fine arts, theater.
Anna Kikina
At the last meeting there were 50 people. After passing the qualifying tests, eight applicants remained. The competition lasted almost the whole of 2012.
The only female cosmonaut in Roscosmos
At the moment, there are 25 cosmonauts in Roscosmos, four more people are in the search status.
Anna Kikina is the only active female cosmonaut in Roscosmos and in Russia. The flight on the Crew Dragon was the first in her career.
Airborne instructor
Anna Kikina is also a parachute training instructor. She died in 153 parachute jumps.
By her definition, she likes all extreme types of training, including special parachuting, special flying, survival in various climatic and geographical zones.
Besides, Anna Kikina Master of Sports of Russia in polyathlon (all-around) and rafting. She was a member of the Russian rafting team.
Roskosmos was preparing Anna for a flight on the Soyuz, but something went wrong
Anna Kikina was preparing for the Soyuz MS-22 mission. The Russian spacecraft arrived at the ISS on September 21, 2022.
At the end of 2021, Dmitry Rogozin, at that time the head of Roscosmos, announced that Anna Kikina was flying to the ISS as part of the crew of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Crew of Missy Crew-5.
This is the first of three crossover flights between Roscosmos and NASA. American astronaut Francisco Rubio flew instead of Anna Kikina to the ISS on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.
Anna Kikina was preparing to fly on Crew Dragon throughout 2022. On September 8, she flew to the United States for final training.
Crew Dragon was scheduled to release on October 3rd, but due to Hurricane Ian in Florida, it had to be pushed back to October 5th.
Not just flying, but conducting scientific experiments
Roscosmos reported that Anna Kikina joined the 68th main expedition, which is scheduled to conduct 49 scientific experiments.
Among them is the Biomag-M experiment, a study of biofilm accumulations in microgravity.
Another experiment – “Probiovit” – substantiation and experimental evaluation of the main technological stages of obtaining probiotics on board the ISS.
Anna Kikina is concerned about research in the field of space biology and physiology, materials science, Earth exploration from space, cosmic ray physics and the development of advanced space technologies.
Source: Iphones RU
