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MOSCOW, September 29 After returning from the ISS to Earth, cosmonauts are strictly prohibited from exercising physical activity; they must wait until adaptation to gravity occurs, » “We need to be patient a little,” said Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev.
“The main recommendation is not to make sudden movements. While the vestibular apparatus has not yet fully adapted to earth’s gravity, we need to restrain ourselves. After all, we are active people, we want to jump up to do something, and this is categorically contraindicated for us for now. The most important thing is — time, time heals, we need to be patient a little,” he said at a press conference at the Cosmonaut Training Center, which was broadcast on YouTube.
Answering questions from journalists, Prokopyev confirmed that the prescribed number of days required for post-flight rehabilitation by cosmonauts is equal to the number of days spent in weightlessness.
His colleague Dmitry Petelin said that after returning to Earth, gravity “presses”, it’s hard to hold your head, you can feel the weight of your eyelids on your eyes, and you have to learn many “simple things” again.
The ISS crew, consisting of Prokopiev, Petelin and American Francisco Rubio, returned to Earth on September 27. This was Prokopyev’s second flight; Petelin and Rubio were in orbit for the first time. The crew spent 371 days in space, this is the longest single flight under the ISS program.