Sergei Konstantinowitsch Krikalev

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Sergei Krikalev
Sergei Krikalev
Country: Soviet UnionSoviet Union Soviet Union
Organization: NPO Energia -7
selected on 2nd September 1985
Calls: 6 space flights
Start of the
first space flight:
November 26, 1988
Landing of the
last space flight:
October 11, 2005
Time in space: 803d 9h 41min
EVA inserts: 8th
EVA total duration: 41h 26min
retired on March 27, 2009
Space flights

Sergei Konstantinowitsch Krikaljow ( Russian Сергей Константинович Крикалёв , scientific transliteration Sergej Konstantinovič Krikalëv ; born August 27, 1958 in Leningrad , RSFSR ) is a former Russian cosmonaut . From March 27, 2009 to April 1, 2014, he was head of the now civil Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut training center . He is currently deputy director of the Central Research Institute for Mechanical Engineering (ZNIImasch).

With six space flights and around 803 days total stay in earth orbit, from 2005 to 2015 he was the space traveler with the longest stay in space , until Gennady Padalka surpassed this record and with the sixth flight by Yuri Malenchenko he is on the list of space travelers with the longest Duration of stay in space dropped to third place.

Krikalev studied engineering and mechanical engineering at the Leningrad Mechanical Institute. As early as 1985, he made a name for himself as a space expert with his help in the rescue of the Salyut 7 station, which had got into a tailspin .

Cosmonaut activity

On September 2, 1985, the State Interagency Commission selected him as a cosmonaut. After successfully completing basic training in 1986, he prepared for a mission as part of the Buran program as a member of the planned crew under Commander Alexander Shchukin .

Soyuz TM-7

After switching to the Mir program , his first space flight with the Soyuz TM-7 spacecraft took him to the Mir space station on November 26, 1988. Together with his commander Alexander Volkov , he formed the Mir EO-4 mission , which overlapped with the Mir stays of the Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Lyachov and Valeri Polyakov , as well as Jean-Loup Chrétien from France and Abdul Ahad Mohmand from Afghanistan . Krikalev landed again on April 27, 1989 with Soyuz TM-7. Its first space flight had taken 151 days.

Soyuz TM-12

His second flight to Mir took off on May 18, 1991 with Soyuz TM-12 . His mission was called Mir LD-3 , and this time his stay aboard the space station was 311 days and included seven spacecraft missions . Krikalev returned to Earth on March 25, 1992 aboard Soyuz TM-13 .

STS-60

In October 1992, the US space agency NASA announced that a future space shuttle flight would have an experienced cosmonaut on board. Krikalev was one of the two nominated by the Russian space agency and took part in NASA astronaut training.

Thus he completed his third space flight on board the space shuttle Discovery . He was the first Russian spaceman to take off in a US spaceship. This STS-60 mission ran from February 3 to February 11, 1994.

On other shuttle missions as part of the Shuttle Mir program , he worked in the flight control center in Houston . He supported the flights STS-63 , STS-71 , STS-74 and STS-76 as Capcom .

STS-88

Krikalev also carried out his fourth space flight on board a space shuttle. From December 4 to December 16, 1998, he flew the STS-88 mission aboard the Endeavor , during which the International Space Station (ISS) was assembled from the modules Zarya and Unity .

ISS expedition 1

Krikalev belonged to the first regular crew of the ISS. On October 31, 2000, the Soyuz TM-31 began its fifth space flight. He worked as a flight engineer on ISS Expedition 1 until the Shuttle Discovery (Mission STS-102 ) brought him and his colleagues William Shepherd and Yuri Gidsenko back to Earth on March 20, 2001. This flight had taken 140 days.

ISS expedition 11

He undertook his sixth and final space flight on April 15, 2005 with Soyuz TMA-6 for his second visit to the International Space Station as commander of ISS expedition 11 . He returned to Earth on October 11, 2005. Sergei Krikaljow set a new long-term record with this flight , which was only broken by Gennady Padalka in 2015 . Its total flight time is 803 days, 9 hours and 41 minutes. In purely mathematical terms, he has almost traveled to Mars.

With this flight he drew level with astronauts John Young , Story Musgrave , Franklin Chang-Diaz , Curtis Brown , Jim Wetherbee , Colin Michael Foale , who were allowed to complete six space flights before him.

During his space flights, he worked for a total of 41 hours and 26 minutes outside of space stations or space shuttles on eight spacecraft .

Sergei Krikalev puts on a training suit.

Special features of the Soyuz TM-12 / TM-13 mission

Krikalev was stationed on the Mir during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It started on May 18, 1991 and witnessed the election of Boris Yeltsin as Russian President, the coup in Moscow , and the dissolution of the USSR in space .

The disintegration of the Soviet Union into the individual nation states extended his stay in space by half a year. For political reasons, instead of the planned long-term replacement from Russia, the Kazakh Toktar Aubakirow was sent to Mir in October 1991 , a cosmonaut with no long-term experience who returned to Earth after eight days. The Russians were responding to a demand from the soon-to-be-independent Republic of Kazakhstan , on whose territory the Baikonur Cosmodrome is located.

Just as his colleague Alexander Volkov started out as a Soviet citizen, Krikalev returned to earth on March 25, 1992 after 10 months as a citizen of the Russian Federation. In addition, as a result of political changes, his hometown Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg during his flight.

Time dilation

Due to the length of time that Krikalev spent in orbit at high speeds, he was exposed to time dilation for a long time , i.e. the relativistic effect that objects moving at high speed experience a slowdown in the passage of time; it is estimated that for Krikalev this effect adds up to a total of about 1/50 of a second compared to a stationary observer on earth. He was therefore referred to as the "most productive time traveler" in the world. This (unofficial) title has now passed to Gennady Ivanovich Padalka , who in 2015 replaced Krikalev's record as a cosmonaut with the longest total duration of stay in space.

Awards

In April 1989, Krikalev was given the Hero of the Soviet Union award. In April 1992 he was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation by a decree of the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin . The asteroid (7469) Krikalev is named after Krikalev .

Private

Krikalev has been married since 1993 and has one daughter.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Representatives of Russia's Space Industry Have Discussed the Prospects of the Lunar Program. Roscosmos press service, October 10, 2014, accessed October 20, 2014 .
  2. A. Galindo Tixaire, Rev.R.Acad.Cienc.Exact.Fís.Nat. Vol. 100 (2006), 141 (147)
  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/science/a-trip-forward-in-time-your-travel-agent-einstein.html?_r=0
  4. https://www.universetoday.com/105650/cosmonaut-sergei-krikalev-the-worlds-most-prolific-time-traveler/
  5. ^ Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott: Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour. Princeton University Press 2016, p. 345.
  6. http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=1323 (Russian)

Web links

Commons : Sergei Krikalev  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files