Russian cosmonauts are expected to again be equipped with survival pistols by 2021, the head of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, said Wednesday
ST. PETERSBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th September, 2019) Russian cosmonauts are expected to again be equipped with survival pistols by 2021, the head of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, said Wednesday.
On Monday, Roscosmos said that it was considering returning to equipping cosmonauts with the pistols, which are intended to be used as a survival aid in emergency situations, such as landing in the wilderness.
"The gun is already being tested. It may be included in the equipment of the cosmonauts within a year and a half, by 2021," Rogozin said, after a meeting with the participants of the National Research and Practice Conference Orbit of the Youth in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
Since the first flight of the Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961, cosmonauts were always equipped with a survival pistol.� From 1986, special TP-82 pistols were carried regularly on Soviet and Russian space missions. In 2007, TP-82s were excluded from the emergency kit, reportedly because new ammunition for the pistols was no longer produced and the remaining ammunition had become unusable. Pistols have since continued to be excluded from cosmonaut equipment.
