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Agence France-Presse

Russia is testing a gun that returning cosmonauts could use to fend off wild animals when landing in remote areas, the head of the Russian space agency said on Wednesday.
Cosmonauts have been unarmed for more than a decade but Roscosmos agency head Dmitry Rogozin said it was time to bring back weapons as manned launches move to the Russian Far East.
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“It’s possible that landings will also be in this area, which is not populated, with forest and forest-steppe, and cosmonauts are saying that it would be good to have [a weapon] in the kit,” Rogozin said.
“This weapon is already being tested,” Rogozin added.
“I think in a year and a half, most likely, highly likely [it would become] part of the cosmonauts’ kit,” TASS news agency reported him as saying.
“It would be for crew support in terms of being able to fire flare signals as well as in terms of a weapon that may be needed in a wild forest,” he added.

Earlier Oleg Kononenkov, a Russian cosmonaut who commanded an ISS crew that recently returned to Earth, said extra tools could be necessary in the wilderness.
“It’s possible that it’s rough terrain, that we may need a special knife to build shelter, and perhaps we need a weapon, because of wild animals,” he told journalists on Tuesday.
From the 1980s, cosmonauts carried a TP-82 three-barrel pistol, whose butt also concealed a machete. The weapon was removed from the approved emergency kit in 2007.


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Russia to give cosmonauts guns to fend off wild animals on landing

A Russian cosmonaut conducts a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Photo: Reuters

epa06569590 A handout photo made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows the Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft as it lands with Expedition 54 crew members Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei of NASA and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, 28 February 2018. Acaba, Vande Hei, and Misurkin are returning after 168 days in space where they served as members of the Expedition 53 and 54 crews onboard the International Space Station. EPA-EFE/BILL INGALLS / NASA / HANDOUT MANDATORY CREDIT: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

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The Fedor robot before it was loaded into a Soyuz capsule. Photo; AP

A combination of file photographs shows : (L) a handout provided by NASA on March 13, 2012 showing an image of the Robonaut 2 humanoid robot during a system checkout in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station (ISS), (top R) a handout picture taken on July 26, 2019 and released by the official website of the Russian State Space Corporation ROSCOSMOS on August 21, 2019 showing the Russian humanoid robot Skybot F-850, Fedor, being tested ahead of its flight on board Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and (down R) a handout picture received from KIBO ROBOT PROJECT on November 6, 2013 showing a humanoid robot Kirobo in the International Space Station (ISS). - An unmanned spacecraft carrying Russia's first humanoid robot Fedor to be sent into orbit successfully docked at the International Space Station on August 27, 2019. Fedor is not the first robot to go into space. In 2011, NASA sent up Robonaut 2, a humanoid developed with General Motors th

Russia’s Fedor robot inside the Russian Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft. Photo: Reuters

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Smoke rises from the site at an explosives plant in the town of Dzerzhinsk. Photo: Elena Sorokina via Reuters

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Cosmonauts have been unarmed for more than a decade but weapons are set to be brought back as manned launches move to the Russian Far East



Cosmonauts have been unarmed for more than a decade but Roscosmos agency head Dmitry Rogozin said it was time to bring back weapons as manned launches move to the Russian Far East.


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Russia to give cosmonauts guns to fend off wild animals on landing

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Cosmonauts have been unarmed for more than a decade but weapons are set to be brought back as manned launches move to the Russian Far East

Cosmonauts have been unarmed for more than a decade but weapons are set to be brought back as manned launches move to the Russian Far East