Anna Kikina, 37, will be part of this flight scheduled for October 3 aboard a Crew Dragon capsule from the company Space X. Two American astronauts, Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, and a Japanese, Koichi Wakata, will also take part in this mission.
The vehicle will launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
“I am ready for this flight. I will be going to America on September 8 for the final training session, pre-flight activities and various procedures,” Ms. Kikina, an engineer by training, said in a broadcast press conference. by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
She will become the fifth Russian female professional cosmonaut to go into space and the first cosmonaut from her country to fly with a Space X mission, "a great responsibility", according to her.
Asked about the attitude of American astronauts towards her, in a context of diplomatic tensions linked to the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian said she felt "appreciated".
“I am very happy to be part of this crew,” she insisted.
The last Russian woman to fly in space before Anna Kikina was Elena Serova, who spent 167 days aboard the ISS in 2014 and 2015.
The Soviet Union sent the first woman in space in history, Valentina Tereshkova, on June 16, 1963. She was followed by Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman to walk in space, in July 1984.
In October, Russia also sent an actress, Yulia Peressild, to shoot the first feature film in orbit, before a competing project from Tom Cruise.
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Space is one of the few areas where the United States and Russia continue to cooperate despite diplomatic tensions.
On September 21, a NASA astronaut, Francisco Rubio, is due to travel to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitri Peteline.
© 2022 AFP