The three cosmonauts during the press conference.
A post-flight press conference was held at TsPK today. The cosmonauts answered questions from journalists and social media subscribers.
A post-flight press conference was held today at the Cosmonaut Training Center, attended by Russian cosmonauts of the 68th and 69th long-duration expeditions to the ISS. The commander of the crew of the Soyuz MS-23 ship Sergei Prokopyevthe flight engineer Dmitry Petelin And Andrei FedyaevThe latter, returning from an expedition on the Crew Dragon ship, answered questions from journalists and subscribers to the center’s social networks.
The duration of work in orbit by Sergei Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Frank Rubio was 371 dayswhich set a new record for continuous stay on the ISS.
They launched their space flight on September 21, 2022 aboard the Soyuz spacecraft MS-22. Due to an emergency situation, the duration of their expedition was extended and the crew returned from orbit aboard the Soyuz spacecraft MS-23.
“This actually surprised us,” said Sergei Prokopyev. “During preparation for the spacewalk, when we had already depressurized the airlock, an error occurred in the thermal control system of the ship on which we arrived. Even through the window we watched drops of liquid spread in all directions and passed our portholes.
Then the cosmonauts urgently carried out a “reverse airlock” process and waited for Earth specialists to make a decision on how to proceed. In mid-February, the rescue ship Soyuz MS-23 was launched in unmanned mode, on which the crew landed two days ago.
Sergei Prokopyev emphasized that the cosmonauts met each other during their expedition 28 people on board the station.
Answering questions from media representatives, Dmitry Petelin spoke about the scientific experiments that were planned to be carried out during the station’s working year:
“I remember the “Dispersion” experiment – the study of dispersive liquids in weightless conditions under the influence of space. From a scientific perspective, the most important thing is that the experiment was carried out by students. I really liked the facilities. Of course we were also looking forward to the “Vampire” crystal fusion experiment. »
Andrey Fedyaev took part in the ISS-69 expedition aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft under a cross-flight agreement.
“The basic idea of cruise flights is to always have a person in each segment who can monitor it,” the cosmonaut noted.
After launching on March 2, 2023 Andrei Fedyaev Returned to Earth 186 days later. He spoke to media representatives about the relationships between the crews on board the station:
“The life of the cosmonauts and astronauts on the station is the clearest example of how people should live on Earth. If we lived like this on Earth, there would be no conflicts or other problems.”
The cosmonauts then answered questions from TsPK social media subscribers about life and work at the station.
Source: TsPK/Roscosmos/TASS; Photo credit: Andreï Shelepin/TsPK/Roscosmos
Sergei Prokopyev.
Dmitry Petelin.
Andrei Fedyaev. He seems more dashing than his colleagues: he normally spent only half the time on the ISS as his comrades and his rehabilitation is much more advanced.