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https://sputniknews.com/science/2019033 ... -delivery/Cosmonaut Training Center gets new Tu-204 aircraft for delivering ISS crews
Russian Aviaton » Monday April 1, 2019 12:08 MSK
The airplane, designed by Tupolev and built by the Kazan Aircraft Production Association,
is one of two planes being delivered to the Yuri-Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow
to comfortably ferry cosmonauts to and from the Baikonur and Vostochny cosmodromes, including after they have returned from space.
The Tu-204-300 airplane in the video, which was released by the Zvezda television channel on Saturday,
was named after Sergei Korolev, the widely recognised founding father of the Soviet and Russian rocketry and space programmes.
The specially equipped aircraft, featuring six cabins to comfortably transport cosmonauts in recumbent position
immediately after their return from space,
and several dozen more people in traditional seated position,
is one of two Tu-204-300s ordered by the Cosmonaut Training Centre.
The second Tu-204-300, named after Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space,
will be delivered to the Centre next week, and carry out its maiden flight to the Baikonur spaceport in July 2019.
Several images
thru the Brazilian CAVOK website:https://www.cavok.com.br/blog/imagens-c ... u-204-300/
http://vestiprim.com/news/1296-airliner ... nauts.html
The Tu-204-300 twin-engine aircraft was originally built at the Tupolev enterprise for the Vladivostok-Avia airline,
whose activities were suspended in 2014 due to the lack of the necessary number of aircraft to perform irregular (Charter) air transportation,
as well as due to the deterioration of the main production indicators and the financial and economic condition of the company's activities.