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Depending on an amount of skills to be trained and on the amount of the simulated systems the simulators are classified as specialized and integrated ones.
The specialized simulators are used for acquiring skills on carrying out single particular operations, such as approach and docking with other manned space vehicles, run of experiments and research, preparation for air-locking and exit from the manned space vehicle etc. Therefore, specialized simulators simulate operation of single independent systems and informational sources, which are used by cosmonauts for carrying out specific particular tasks.
The integrated simulators are used for acquiring skills on carrying out the mission plan as a whole. All skills and knowledge, which have been previously mastered by means of specialized simulators and trainers, are integrated here. Integrated simulators enable to simulate and to train the whole program of the forthcoming mission and run of all systems, starting from the procedure of pre-launch preparation of the manned space vehicle and ending up with crew actions after touchdown. The staff of the Mission Control Center regularly participates in such training, thus enabling to improve its interaction with the crew. Therefore, integrated simulators have the greatest entirety of simulated systems of control.
Depending on feasibility of acceleration sensations the simulators and trainers are divided into the static and dynamic ones. Lability and mobility of the operator's workstation are used as a design principle for dynamic simulators, which simulate the dynamically changing parameters of a space flight. For that the workstation is mounted on the movable platform with 3 or 6 degrees of freedom or in the center of the gimbaled centrifuge cabin. Dynamic simulators ensure improvement of controlling skills under conditions of acceleration sensations of the real space flight as well. The operator's workstation is in its stable (fixed) state in the static simulators and a cosmonaut is not exposed to the acceleration and G-load.
Depending on the simulators placement and location, they are divided into the ground-based and the on-board ones. The first category is mounted, as a rule, in the specially equipped rooms. The on-board simulators and trainers, which are located directly in the manned space vehicle, serve for rehearsing the crew's skills on attitude control, navigational analysis, space vehicle control, which are required only in the certain moments of flight (in the course of the flight path correction, orbital docking, landing etc.).
