Cosmonaut training centre

January 11, 2010, is the 50th anniversary of the Soviet government’s decision to establish a cosmonaut training facility, now the Yuri Gagarin Research and Testing Cosmonaut Training Center. Today, both cosmonauts and space tourists are trained at the Center.
The Yuri Gagarin Training Center in Star City.

A total of 508 people who were trained at Star City outside Moscow have orbited Earth in the last 50 years. RIA Novosti presents a collection of photographs documenting these 50 years of manned space flights.
Cosmonaut German Titov during a pre-flight training exercise in June 1960.

November 1960. Yuri Gagarin during a pre-flight training session.

1963. Zero gravity pre-flight training.

1964. Boris Yegorov during physical training at the Center’s gym in Star City.

1975. From left to right: engineer Georgy Grechko and flight commander Alexei Gubarev, both Soyuz-17 crew members, during a training session on a Salyut space station model.

1977. Soviet cosmonauts Valery Kubasov and Alexei Leonov, each the holder of two Hero of the Soviet Union gold star decorations, in a medical ward.

1980. Soviet cosmonaut Yevgeny Khrunov, right, and Cuban cosmonaut Jose Armando Lopez Falcon, both members of the Soyuz-38 international backup crew, during a training session on a centrifuge.

1983. French astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien during a training session at the Yuri Gagarin Training Center.

1983. Installation of an additional solar panel in the weightless environment training facility at the Cosmonaut Training Center.

1989. Centrifuge for training at maximum g-forces.

2007. From left to right: Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, and the fifth space tourist, Hungarian-American Charles Simonyi at the Yuri Gagarin Training Center. All three men were members of the 15th ISS mission main crew.

2009. Member of the 21st ISS mission main crew, cosmonaut Maxim Surayev before a training session on the Soyuz spaceship model at the Yuri Gagarin Training Center.