Selection of candidates for participation in the Odyssey programme to be completed at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre on 28 October, 2004.
The Odyssey programme is used to simulate all stages of crew selection, flight training and space flight on board a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft.
Candidates are selected competitively among college and university student. Those selected at the first stage undergo a medical and psychological examination and, based on the outcome, are organised into the main and backup crews, each of them numbering eight persons. At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre they do a crash course on:
- general cosmonaut training;
- dedicated cosmonaut training preparing them for weightlessness, g-loads, survival, psychological stress;
- integrated crew training under the orbit insertion and landing programme, using Soyuz cargo spacecraft simulators;
- training under the technological experiment and research programme.
The space flight is simulated in real time; the main stages are the launch of the Soyuz spacecraft, insertion into orbit, docking of the interplanetary craft, orbiting of the earth, un-docking and landing of the Soyuz cargo spacecraft.
