MINSK, 14 February (BelTA) – The Russian state corporation Roscosmos pays priority attention to the training a Belarusian cosmonaut for a space flight, State Secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Dmitry Mezentsev told the media following a meeting of state customers and coordinators of the Union State programs on defense, security, space and science, BelTA has learned.
"Roscosmos pays immediate attention to the space training of the crew, including the Belarusian cosmonaut," Dmitry Mezentsev stated.
"Within Russia-Belarus space cooperation, everything is on schedule. I recall the visit of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko to Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center where we could see Marina Vasilevskaya [the main crew member of the upcoming Soyuz MS-25 mission] undergoing tests on the centrifugal machine. Not a single muscle on her face twitched. She handled all the tests in 5G-7G really well," he said.
The Soyuz MS-25 mission is scheduled for launch on 21 March 2024, as BelTA learned from Roscosmos earlier. The crew will include Belarus’ Marina Vasilevskaya (Anastasia Lenkova as backup), Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson. Marina Vasilevskaya and Oleg Novitsky’s flight is supposed to last for 12 days. They will get back to Earth on board the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft, which is now docked at the ISS, together with the USA’s Loral O’Hara.
