Russian cosmonauts will begin training in landing on the moon and Mars this year as the Russian Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Centre (GCTC) has received a helicopter needed for the training, GCTC head Pavel Vlasov said on Tuesday. This reported by Sputnik.

"At the end of 2018, we received a Eurocopter AS350 from the [Russian] Center for Operation of Space Ground-Based Infrastructure. The helicopter will be used in the program for cosmonaut training this year. This will be done in order to familiarize cosmonauts not only with how to fly aircraft but also with the vertical take-off and landing vehicles. The skills that they are going to acquire will be useful in piloting vehicles that will land vertically on other planets", Vlasov said.

In April, Vlasov told Sputnik that the centre decided to include training on helicopters in its summer program in order to work out vertical landing on Mars and the moon.

Meanwhile, the GCTC received Tuesday a second Tu-204-300 aircraft from the Russian JSC Ilyushin Finance Co. lessor which will be used to transport Russian cosmonauts to the Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan.

"Today, on 7 May, at 3:59 p.m. local time [12:59 GMT] a Tu-204-300 aircraft landed at the [Russian] Defense Ministry's Chkalovsky airport. It is the second [aircraft] to be received by the GCTC united aviation corps from the Ilyushin Finance Company", the centre said.

The GCTC said that several adjustments were made to the aircraft's electric power and septic systems based on recommendations of cosmonauts and the agency's medical staff in order to accommodate the space flight crew once they returned to Earth from orbit.