Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center - Key Infrastructure

Key Infrastructure

The facility contains infrastructure essential for the training of cosmonauts across a wide range of experiences, including simulating g-loads, mission specific/suit training, medical observation/testing and astronavigation.

Key GCTC facilities include:

• Full-size mockups of all major spacecraft developed since the Soviet era, including the Soyuz and Buran vehicles, the TKS modules and orbital stations of the Salyut Program, Mir, and ISS. These were coexisting or with time replaced one another inside two main training hangar halls of the Center. Room 1 houses the Salyut 4, 6, Mir (Don-17KS) with Kvant (Don-37KE), Kvant 2 (Don-77KSD) and Kristall (Don-77KST) modules and a Soyuz 2 descent module simulators. Room 1A houses the Soyuz simulators (Don-7ST3 -old STK-7ST - for the Soyuz TMA; TDK-7ST4 - old TDK-7TS2 for Soyouz TM - for the Soyuz TMM; Don-732M modified for Soyuz TM and the Pilot 732 - for the TORU docking system).Other rooms house the Salyut 7, Spectr (Don-77KSO), Priroda (Navazhdenije), Buran, Zarya and Zvezda simulators.

• Zero-gravity training aircraft for simulating weightlessness (cf. Vomit Comet), including the MiG-15 UTI, Tupolev Tu-104 and later the IL-76 MDK with internal volume of 400 cubic metres (4,300 sq ft). Training aircraft are based at the Russian Air Force base at Chkalovskiy airfield.
• A Medical observation clinic and testing facility.
• A planetarium built in East Germany, capable of projecting as many as 9,000 stars.
• The original office of Yuri Gagarin and a number of monuments and busts to him and other cosmonauts.

• Cosmonauts training with the Zarya training module in the pool of the GCTC.

• Mir training module

• ISS training modules

• Soyuz TMA training module

• The mouth of the centrifuge at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City.

• Mother of all centrifuges - Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center