Commission to Suggest Extending Russian Cosmonaut Selection Until December

Note: Photo for illustration purposes.

Russia’s commission for selecting cosmonauts will suggest extending the current selection until December in a letter to Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin, the press service of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center told TASS.

“The selection commission made the decision to suggest the head of Roscosmos extending the selection until mid-December,” the press service said.

The press service said the commission examines several would-be cosmonauts every week and has already selected a number of “candidates to candidates.”

The current cosmonaut selection began on June 3, 2019 and was expected to be over by October.

The Cosmonaut Training Center told TASS in August that it had received 1,987 applications from would-be cosmonauts and invited 59 of them to take part in the next stage of the selection. Applications could be submitted until June. According to Roscosmos, the full list of documents was submitted by 156 contenders, including 123 men and 133 women.