Russia has started to vaccinate its cosmonauts | First …

Russia administered the Sputnik V. vaccine to a team of cosmonauts. Astronauts Oleg Artemiev and Nikolai Chub, as well as several employees of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center received the first dose in the iconic Star City. Cosmonauts underwent a mandatory medical examination before inoculation. After being injected, Artemiav explained the flow of the procedure: “Vaccinations are usually done quickly, but in this case the process takes a little longer: we visit the doctor, fill out the necessary paperwork and wait for the vaccine. thaws “.

The 49-year-old cosmonaut added that in order not to compromise the implementation of the Russian space program, you need to be in good health. For him, getting vaccinated is something he has been doing since childhood: “I have been vaccinated all my life and I can compare myself to those people who did not do it for reasons of principle. They are got sick and often they were worse than they should be. “

The Russian space industry was no exception and has been severely affected by covid-19. 78 employees in the sector have died from the virus and more than 13,000 have been infected. “The disease is terrible. Many of my friends have suffered a lot. There are even those who lost their lives due to the virus,” said Artemiev.

Cosmonautics employs around 170,000 people in this country, largely due to the heritage of the Soviet Union, which also made important contributions to space science and technology. In 1957, he launched Sputnik-1, the first artificial satellite in history, into space. It is no coincidence that the eponymous drug was named in his honor. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin, aboard the Vostok-1 spacecraft, became the first human to reach space.

During this year marked by the coronavirus, space programs continued. In October, two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft reached the International Space Station in record time. They did it in 3 hours and 3 minutes after doing just two rounds of the earth. But to achieve this feat, the crew had to comply with a strict quarantine of two weeks at Star City and 17 days at Baikonur.

The arrival of the vaccine is essential for cosmonauts to prepare to resume its usual course as it was before the pandemic.