During the training, the Hungarian astronaut candidates acquired skills that help them survive in emergency situations, and now their preparation has reached a new level.
The preparation of the four astronaut candidates of the Hunor program - Gyula Cserényi, Tibor Kapu, Ádám Schlégl and András Szakály - has reached its next stage.
After they passed the prerequisite physical condition assessment in April, the one-week land part of their survival training took place in mid-July.
The Special Training Department of the MH Altiszti Academy was responsible for the preparation, so the opening of the training was held in the barracks of Artúr Görgey in Szentendre.
At the opening, Gábor Magyari, the flight operations and training manager of the Hungarian astronaut program, thanked the Hungarian Defense Forces and the MH Altiszti Academy for contributing to this training, which fits into the official training schedule determined by the European Space Agency. Colonel Zoltán Eleki, the deputy group chief of the Honvéd General Staff Training Group Chief, spoke about the fact that during the training, the astronaut candidates can acquire skills that help them survive in emergency situations, as well as effective cooperation with the units involved in the rescue. The SERE training is also very important for the soldiers, which will provide foundations on which further, even foreign, training can be built on, he added.
SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) is a complex training system consisting of survival, enemy avoidance, resistance, and extraction. As part of this, the astronaut candidates learned the tricks of shelter construction, food and water acquisition and water purification methods, learned to light a fire and acquired field knowledge at the training grounds in Csobánka and Izbeg.
The last moment of the final exercise was an extraction performed by an H145M helicopter. In addition to reaching the salient point, the candidates lit a fire to help determine their position with a smoke signal.
The next step in the preparation of the four main members is the three-day water part of the survival training in Szolnok.
