07:25Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov shared his experience of life on the International Space Station on Monday.
"The feeling is that you are on a desert island, but you are not alone, you are in a team, but in the same team. So when a new crew comes to you, it's an event, a huge event," Borisov said.
According to the astronaut, adapting to life in weightlessness presents significant challenges, but Borisov found advantages in the absence of gravity, with the main one being the ability to fly.
"Pushing off, flying - it was just like the anticipation, even cooler. It's a feeling of flying that doesn't go away. I thought it would get boring after a month or two but it doesn't. After a month or two you ask yourself, can I just move without thinking, be there. Yes, you can, but if you're not thinking about anything in the moment, you can fly and smile wide and say, 'Oh, I'm flying'. That feeling doesn't go away in the fifth month, in the sixth month. You are flying, you are genuinely happy about it," Borisov added.
He further remarked that upon returning from orbit, everyday items, from phones to socks, seemed very heavy to him, adding that 'it's much easier to get used to living on Earth than it is to living in weightlessness'.
He also discussed his emotions during the flight aboard the American SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
"[It can be compared] to flying in a small business jet, where you are the crew, you are the stewardess, you are the passenger, you are the operator, you are the pilot. It's kind of like a small plane where everything is quite comfortable, quiet, lots of screens, where you're not doing anything active because in a normal flight, everything is done for you by SpaceX's Mission Control Centre. It's just a comfortable and quite long flight. When we talk about the flight there - over 30 hours - it just feels like a long time in a confined space. Imagine just flying in a plane, 10-12 hours is hard, and here it's 30 hours," Borisov explained.
Borisov arrived at the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft with the Crew-7 expedition on August 27, 2023.
The crew also included NASA astronaut and Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
The mission on the orbital station lasted 199 days. On March 12, the spacecraft returned to the Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
Borisov is the third Russian cosmonaut to travel to the ISS aboard a SpaceX rocket, after Anna Kikina and Andrey Fedyaev, who arrived at the station in October 2022 and March 2023, respectively.
'Feeling is that you are on a desert island' - Cosmonaut Borisov on life aboard the ISS
Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov shared his experience of life on the International Space Station on Monday.
"The feeling is that you are on a desert island, but you are not alone, you are in a team, but in the same team. So when a new crew comes to you, it's an event, a huge event," Borisov said.
According to the astronaut, adapting to life in weightlessness presents significant challenges, but Borisov found advantages in the absence of gravity, with the main one being the ability to fly.
"Pushing off, flying - it was just like the anticipation, even cooler. It's a feeling of flying that doesn't go away. I thought it would get boring after a month or two but it doesn't. After a month or two you ask yourself, can I just move without thinking, be there. Yes, you can, but if you're not thinking about anything in the moment, you can fly and smile wide and say, 'Oh, I'm flying'. That feeling doesn't go away in the fifth month, in the sixth month. You are flying, you are genuinely happy about it," Borisov added.
He further remarked that upon returning from orbit, everyday items, from phones to socks, seemed very heavy to him, adding that 'it's much easier to get used to living on Earth than it is to living in weightlessness'.
He also discussed his emotions during the flight aboard the American SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
"[It can be compared] to flying in a small business jet, where you are the crew, you are the stewardess, you are the passenger, you are the operator, you are the pilot. It's kind of like a small plane where everything is quite comfortable, quiet, lots of screens, where you're not doing anything active because in a normal flight, everything is done for you by SpaceX's Mission Control Centre. It's just a comfortable and quite long flight. When we talk about the flight there - over 30 hours - it just feels like a long time in a confined space. Imagine just flying in a plane, 10-12 hours is hard, and here it's 30 hours," Borisov explained.
Borisov arrived at the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft with the Crew-7 expedition on August 27, 2023.
The crew also included NASA astronaut and Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
The mission on the orbital station lasted 199 days. On March 12, the spacecraft returned to the Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
Borisov is the third Russian cosmonaut to travel to the ISS aboard a SpaceX rocket, after Anna Kikina and Andrey Fedyaev, who arrived at the station in October 2022 and March 2023, respectively.
Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov shared his experience of life on the International Space Station on Monday.
"The feeling is that you are on a desert island, but you are not alone, you are in a team, but in the same team. So when a new crew comes to you, it's an event, a huge event," Borisov said.
According to the astronaut, adapting to life in weightlessness presents significant challenges, but Borisov found advantages in the absence of gravity, with the main one being the ability to fly.
"Pushing off, flying - it was just like the anticipation, even cooler. It's a feeling of flying that doesn't go away. I thought it would get boring after a month or two but it doesn't. After a month or two you ask yourself, can I just move without thinking, be there. Yes, you can, but if you're not thinking about anything in the moment, you can fly and smile wide and say, 'Oh, I'm flying'. That feeling doesn't go away in the fifth month, in the sixth month. You are flying, you are genuinely happy about it," Borisov added.
He further remarked that upon returning from orbit, everyday items, from phones to socks, seemed very heavy to him, adding that 'it's much easier to get used to living on Earth than it is to living in weightlessness'.
He also discussed his emotions during the flight aboard the American SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
"[It can be compared] to flying in a small business jet, where you are the crew, you are the stewardess, you are the passenger, you are the operator, you are the pilot. It's kind of like a small plane where everything is quite comfortable, quiet, lots of screens, where you're not doing anything active because in a normal flight, everything is done for you by SpaceX's Mission Control Centre. It's just a comfortable and quite long flight. When we talk about the flight there - over 30 hours - it just feels like a long time in a confined space. Imagine just flying in a plane, 10-12 hours is hard, and here it's 30 hours," Borisov explained.
Borisov arrived at the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft with the Crew-7 expedition on August 27, 2023.
The crew also included NASA astronaut and Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
The mission on the orbital station lasted 199 days. On March 12, the spacecraft returned to the Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
Borisov is the third Russian cosmonaut to travel to the ISS aboard a SpaceX rocket, after Anna Kikina and Andrey Fedyaev, who arrived at the station in October 2022 and March 2023, respectively.