Covid-19 restrictions disrupt astronauts' preparations for ISS

Decades of traditions halted as concerns also grow for other space programmes

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Traditions that spacefarers have observed for decades have fallen foul of efforts to rein in the coronavirus pandemic as astronauts and cosmonauts face more stringent quarantine measures before they blast into orbit.

The next crew bound for the International Space Station, the ultimate destination for self-isolation, will break with ceremony next month and not lay a red carnation at the Kremlin wall where Yuri Gagarin's ashes are interred. Nor will they visit his office at Star City, which preserves everything as it was on the day the first man in space died in a 1968 training flight crash.