The only Russian cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Oleg Kononenko, will have only three days off during New Year's holidays, Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos' press service told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st December, 2018) The only Russian cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Oleg Kononenko, will have only three days off during New Year's holidays, Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos' press service told Sputnik.
"Kononenko's weekend lasts from December 30 to January 1. From January 2, he returns to a regular work schedule," the press service said.
Earlier, Kononenko congratulated people of Earth on the upcoming holiday and announced that the ISS crew would celebrate the New Year 15 times due to the fact that the station makes one turn around the Earth in about 90 minutes.
The cosmonaut also said that the crew members aboard the station feel and understand the significance of "home, family, happiness of the loved ones" and "how unique the world that surrounds us every day is."
He wished people to preserve this world and to enjoy every minute in it.
Alexander Agureyev, the head of the nutrition department of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian academy of Science (IBMP RAS), earlier said that tangerines, the traditional New Year's citrus fruits, had been sent to the ISS on the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft that brought Kononenko to the station.
Also, the cosmonauts took 10 cans of sturgeon caviar, 30 grams each, to the ISS for the New Year celebrations.
Now the station has only one crew of three people who arrived at the station on December 3 aboard the Soyuz MS-11. Kononenko is accompanied by Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques and US astronaut Anne McClain.
