At the end of March, Marcel Saifetdinov and Victoria Doronina witnessed launching a manned mission from Baikonur.

Made in Samara, the launch vehicle “Soyuz 2.1a” delivered to the ISS Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, his colleague from Belarus Marina Vasilevskaya, as well as NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson. This launch was timed to coincide with the anniversary of Yury Alekseevich Gagarin, who would have turned 90 this year.

Two students of the Institute of Aviation and Space-Rocket Engineering, Marcel Saifetdinov and Victoria Doronina, watched the preparation and the launch. They saw delivery of the launch vehicle and its verticalization, visited historical sites at the cosmodrome, met cosmonauts, and took his autograph from the Hero of Russia Sergey Kud-Sverchkov (the first person on the left in the photo).

The students also participated in the international research and practice conference dedicated to the anniversary of the first cosmonaut of the planet, which was held in the city of Baikonur. Marcel Saifetdinov presented his research on developing an adapter for the block of small spacecrafts of a set configuration from the upper stage. Viktoriya Doronina told about selecting the optimal type of voltage concentrator for the linear separation device in the space head separation system. The students also received certificates from Academician Chelomey International Space School.

The photo provided by the participants