Padalka Will Be Only Cosmonaut On Iss With Experience In Long Flights

MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) – Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, commander of the ninth ISS mission, will be the only ISS crew member with experience in long flights.

“There should be one member in the [ISS] crew who has experience with long space flights. The others do not have to have this experience. This is a tested system, the purpose of which is to bring new people into the crew,” a representative of the Cosmonaut Training Center told Interfax on Thursday.

Padalka, 45, performed a 199-day flight in 1998, during which he entered open space twice, spending a total of six hours there. He is married and has three daughters, the oldest of which is now 25. His hobbies are parachuting, diving and the theatre.

“We have undergone good training for the flight and I’m sure we will be able do the job,” Padalka told Interfax.

The crew of the future ISS mission are good friends, he said.

The ninth long-term ISS mission will leave for the ISS from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 7:18 a.m. Moscow time on April 19. Padalka and NASA astronaut Michael Fink will replace the current ISS crew and will be accompanied by Andre Kuipers, who will pay a short visit to the ISS.

This will be Fink and Kuipers’s first flight to space.