Sergei Krikalev

Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (Сергей Константинович Крикалёв, also transliterated as Sergei Krikalyov; born 27 August 1958) is a Russian mechanical engineer, former cosmonaut and former head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

As a prominent rocket scientist, he is a veteran of six space flights and ranks fourth to Gennady Padalka, Oleg Kononenko and Yuri Malenchenko for the most time spent in space: a total of 803 days, 9 hours, and 39 minutes.

Krikalev was stranded on board the Mir during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

As the country that had sent him into space no longer existed, his return was delayed and he stayed in space for 311 consecutive days, twice as long as the mission had originally called for.

He graduated from high school in 1975.

In 1981, he received a mechanical engineering degree from the Leningrad Mechanical Institute, now called Baltic State Technical University.

After graduation in 1981, he joined NPO Energia, the Russian industrial organization responsible for crewed space flight activities.

He tested space flight equipment, developed space operations methods, and participated in ground control operations.

When the Salyut 7 space station failed in 1985, he worked on the rescue mission team, developing procedures for docking with the uncontrolled station and repairing the station's on-board system.

Krikalev was selected as a cosmonaut in 1985, completed his basic training in 1986, and, for a time, was assigned to the Buran Shuttle program.

In early 1988, he began training for his first long-duration flight aboard the Mir space station.

This training included preparations for at least six EVAs (space walks), installation of a new module, the first test of the new Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), and the second joint Soviet-French science mission.

Soyuz TM-7 was launched on 26 November 1988, with Krikalev as flight engineer, Commander Aleksandr Volkov, and French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien.

The previous crew (Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov, and Valeri Polyakov) remained on Mir for another 25 days, marking the longest period a six-person crew had been in orbit.

After the previous crew returned to Earth, Krikalev, Polyakov, and Volkov continued to conduct experiments aboard the Mir station.

Because the arrival of the next crew had been delayed, they prepared the Mir for a period of uncrewed operations before returning to Earth on 27 April 1989.

In April 1990, Krikalev began preparing for his second flight as a member of the backup crew for the eighth long-duration Mir mission, which also included five EVAs and a week of Soviet-Japanese operations.

In December 1990, Krikalev began training for the ninth Mir mission which included training for ten EVAs.

Soyuz TM-12 launched on 19 May 1991, with Krikalev as flight engineer, Commander Anatoly Artsebarsky, and British astronaut Helen Sharman.

Sharman returned to Earth with the following crew after one week, while Krikalev and Artsebarsky remained on Mir.

During the summer, they conducted six EVAs to perform a variety of experiments and some station maintenance tasks.

In July 1991, Krikalev agreed to stay on Mir as flight engineer for the next crew, scheduled to arrive in October because the next two planned flights had been reduced to one.

The engineer slot on the Soyuz TM-13 flight on 2 October 1991, was filled by Toktar Aubakirov, an astronaut from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, who had not been trained for a long-duration mission.

Both Aubakirov and Franz Viehböck, the first Austrian astronaut, returned with Artsebarsky on 10 October 1991.

Commander Alexander Volkov remained on board with Krikalev.

Krikalev was in space when the Soviet Union was dissolved on 26 December 1991.

With the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the landing area both being located in the newly independent Kazakhstan, there was a great deal of uncertainty about the fate of his mission.

He remained in space twice as long as originally planned, spending a total of 311 days in space.

Because Krikalev spent so much time in space traveling at high velocities, time dilation (or the slowing down of clocks) caused him to be 0.02 seconds younger than other people born at the same time as him.

After the crew replacement in October, Volkov and Krikalev continued Mir experiment operations and conducted another EVA before returning to Earth on 25 March 1992.

Throughout his various missions aboard Mir, Krikalev regularly communicated with various amateur radio operators (hams) across the globe.

A particularly lengthy relationship was formed between Krikalev and amateur radio operator Margaret Iaquinto.

At one point during one of his stays in space, he contacted her once a day for an entire year.

Krikalev and Iaquinto successfully communicated via packet radio for the first time in history between an orbiting space station and an amateur radio operator.

They communicated about personal matters, as well as political ones.

Iaquinto set up a makeshift digital bulletin board that the Mir cosmonauts would often use to obtain uncensored western news and information regarding the state of the collapsing Soviet Union.

He retired as a cosmonaut in 2007 and was working as vice president of Space Corporation Energia.

From 2009 to 2014, he headed the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

Krikalev was born in Leningrad in the Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia).

He enjoyed swimming, skiing, cycling, aerobatic flying, and amateur radio operations, particularly from space (callsign U5MIR).