NEW DELHI: Denis Matveev, a veteran Russian cosmonaut-pilot and spacewalker who served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) and spent 195 days in space, in an interaction with TOI on Sunday, revealed that he had conducted an important SARS virus-related test in space in 2022 during the Covid period, and that he has been involved in training and mentorship of four Indian astronauts (Gaganauts) at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre (GCTC) in Russia’s Star City.“The four chosen Indian pilots — Shuk (Shubhanshu Shukla), Papa (Prashanth B Nair), Max ( Angad Pratap) and Ajit Krishnan — are great guys. Very professional. They are the right choice from the Indian side for Gaganyaan mission,” Matveev, who has been pushing for Indo-Russian collaboration on joint space exploration and future projects, said. Matveev, who is the recipient of the “Hero of the Russian Federation” award and has now retired from active spaceflight duty, is in India to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin.Matveev, who had conducted four spacewalks and participated in a wide array of research with his Russian crew Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Korsakov, told TOI at the Nehru Planetarium, “I was able to conduct a very interesting experiment (in space). It was called the magnetic fabrication and its idea was to grow in a microgravity state the proteins of the Covid virus. In microgravity, protein cells grow bigger and (you get) a more clear structure to examine it.
”“So, I was able to grow those SARS proteins and successfully returned it to the previous team. Later, they were sent to a Chinese lab for examination. That’s what I would say helped humanity to understand how the virus works and also helped in making a good vaccine,” he said.On the four Indian astronauts, the cosmonaut said, “In 2021, they stayed and trained at GCTC for more than a year. During that time, we established good relations with them.”
Denis Matveev, who had earlier worked as GCTC in different capacities, is now mentoring the next-generation of space explorers at the Russian space training centre. Matveev said he never dreamt of becoming a cosmonaut in his childhood. It was only when he became an engineer and worked at GCTC that he got the inspiration to become a cosmonaut. “I started my job in the Gagarin center doing work like scheduling and training programmes and implementing them.
Then Roscosmos announced a new cosmonaut class selection. I was 27 years of age then and I just looked through the requirements and decided why not to try.
And I applied and passed through all the stages. And that’s how I became a cosmonaut.”“I’ve just returned from Bangalore. There was a space conference on spacecraft mission operations and I was one of the panelists to discuss human spaceflights. Three out of the four astronauts were there.
We all know that Shuk went to the Axiom spaceflight last year for 20 days. We hugged each other and remembered good old times and discussed things that were going around (on ISS). I also interacted with Shuk before he went to the Axiom mission,” he said.Matveev, who worked on activating the European robotic arm outside ISS and performed various station maintenance tasks on the space station during his Expedition 67, now trains young cosmonauts at GCTC after retiring from active duty. He recently stated that Russia is planning to establish its own national space station, with the first module scheduled for launch in 2027 as ISS is nearing the end of its operational life and that it will be open to international cooperation.
