The astronaut trained for 14 years for the flight, but stayed on Earth because of the film “The Challenge.” Now they want to fire him because of a runny nose

Cosmonaut Andrei Babkin has been asked to resign from his flight position due to health reasons. The main reason is said to be an untreated runny nose. Another reason cited is Roscosmos’s desire to save money on his training, compensating for the budget deficit.

Babkin, who had been preparing for a space flight as part of the detachment for 14 years, never flew to the ISS due to the filming of the movie “Challenge”.

Babkin was offered to resign, although doctors diagnosed him as “healthy”

By words According to a source from the rocket and space industry for Gazeta.Ru, Babkin was asked to sign an application to transfer from a flight position in the cosmonaut corps to the position of deputy commander for science. This means that, in the opinion of the Cosmonaut Training Center’s management, Babkin is no longer suitable as a cosmonaut candidate, which means he will never fly into space again. The information was confirmed by cosmonaut expert Dmitry Strugovets.

The reason for the dismissal could have been a medical exemption. It is explained that it could have been issued by the Main Medical Commission (MMC) of the Cosmonaut Training Center, and its decisions are not checked by anyone. The MMC does not accept the conclusions and opinions of outside doctors, even from leading clinics and research institutes. The publication’s source said that several other cosmonaut candidates had already been dismissed in the same way, but did not provide their names. “This is due to the fact that the cosmonauts within the detachment sign certain rules of the code that do not allow them to “air dirty linen in public,” Gazeta.Ru added.

According to the information available to the publication, Babkin was rejected due to bilateral polysinusitis, or advanced runny nose. He even underwent the recommended surgery and was allowed to fly in the summer of 2022, but in December of that year he was permanently unfit instead of temporarily. At the same time, according to the published certificates of examinations in various medical institutions from March 2023, he was diagnosed as “healthy” and positive dynamics were noted. The same was revealed in June of this year.

Babkin prepared for the flight for 14 years

Andrey Babkin was enrolled to the cosmonaut corps 14 years ago, having previously worked for the same period as an engineer, tester and leading researcher at the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation. He began preparing for the flight in earnest in October 2017, when he joined the ISS-57/58 backup crew with cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Shannon Walker as a flight engineer. But the crew composition was changed in May 2018 due to a revision of the ISS flight program. It is claimed that Boeing then received five seats on the Soyuz spacecraft for American astronauts to pay off Russia’s debt for the Sea Launch floating cosmodrome.

Babkin then began training as part of the ISS-61/62 crew with Nikolai Tikhonov and Christopher Cassidy. But in October 2018, Soyuz MS-10 with Alexei Ovchinin and Nick Hague crashed during launch. Both ended up flying to the ISS on the next scheduled launch, and because of this, Babkin’s flight was postponed again.

Since April 2019, Babkin began training as part of the ISS-63 prime crew with Tikhonov and Japanese Akihiko Hoshide. But the Russian cosmonaut was injured and the entire crew was replaced. Since May 2020, he has been part of the ISS-66 prime crew with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov. But he was eventually replaced by actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko, who went to the ISS in October 2021 to film the movie “Challenge”.

Space instrumentation design engineer Alexander Khokhlov noted at the time that the cosmonauts were unhappy with the project because the federal space program, which was being prepared for launch, was used to work on it. “Instead of finding money to make an additional ship, they took a ship from the federal space program, paid for by the government, on which professional cosmonauts were supposed to fly. There was a flight plan, and this entire plan was redrawn,” Khokhlov said. He admitted that he felt very sorry for Babkin, who is over 50 years old. No one spoke out in his support, although the cosmonaut waited a long time for his flight.

At the moment, his status at the Center is listed as “tester cosmonaut – deputy commander of the cosmonaut detachment (for research and testing work).”

Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on Babkin’s preparation

It is noted that Babkin, in addition to training at the Cosmonaut Training Center, also completed an advanced specialization course in North America and Europe. Thus, in Canada, he learned to operate the Canadian SSRMS manipulator – to capture payloads and satellites. In the United States, he was trained to work with the systems of the American segment of the ISS – he trained in the Alpha-Cupola virtual reality laboratories to accompany and capture the Dragon, Cygnus ships, as well as to operate SAFER – an installation that is put on a spacesuit in outer space.

In Germany, Babkin received certification for work with the European Space Agency’s payload and the Columbus module, and also successfully completed a course from the Japanese space agency JAXA on work with the Japanese JEM module and the HTV cargo ship.

According to Dmitry Strugovets, hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of billions of rubles could have been spent on Babkin’s training over these years, based on the average estimate of the cost of training one cosmonaut from among the candidates.