Gennady Strekalov

Strekalov was born on 26 October 1940 in Mytishchi near Moscow,[2] the son of Mikhail Strekalov and his wife Praskoyva. Mikhail Strekalov was killed in 1945 while fighting for the Red Army in Poland.[3] Gennadi Strekalov graduated from N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School in 1965 with an engineer's diploma.[2] He married Lydia Anatolievna Telezhina; the couple had two daughters, Tatiana and Natalia.[3][2] He died in Moscow on 25 December 2004, from cancer, aged 64.[1]

After leaving school, Strekalov began work as an apprentice coppersmith at OKB-1, Sergei Korolev's experimental design bureau, where he help assemble Sputnik 1.[1] He left to attend university at N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School, obtaining a degree in technical science. He then returned to OKB-1 (which was later renamed RSC Energia) and worked there for the rest of his life.[2]

As part of an operations group, he participated in mission control for flights of scientific research vehicles belonging to the Academy of Sciences.

In January 1974, he began training as a crew member for a mission aboard the Soyuz spacecraft as a flight engineer and, in 1976, was part of the backup crew for the Soyuz 22 mission. Starting October 1978, he trained as a flight engineer for Soyuz expeditions to Salyut-series space stations.[2]

His first spaceflight was 27 November to 10 December 1980, as research engineer on Soyuz T-3's mission to the Salyut 6 station.[2]

His next flight was to be new Salyut 7 space station. He and Vladimir Titov were the backup crew for the Soyuz T-5 mission, the first flight to the new station. The pair, together with Aleksandr Serebrov, launched in April 1983 on Soyuz T-8. As the spacecraft separated from the aerodynamic fairing that shielded it during launch, part of its Igla rendezvous radar system was damaged.[4] The crew attempted a manual docking, using only optical instruments aboard their spacecraft and guided by ground radar, but the approach was unsuccessful and Titov had to brake and dive to avoid a collision.[1][4] Having used up too much of their propellant to attempt another approach, the crew were forced to return to Earth on 22 April 1983.[1]

Strekalov and Titov were again scheduled to fly to Salyut 7 on 26 September 1983. The mission's Soyuz-U launcher developed a serious fuel leak in the minutes before launch, forcing launch control to attempt to fire the launch escape system to pull the spacecraft away from the rocket to safety.[5] This initially failed, but finally operated only 20 seconds before the rocket exploded, devastating Baikonur's Site 1 pad. Strekalov and Titov's capsule was dragged (at accelerations of more than 10 G) to safety and landed 4 km (2.5 mi) from the pad, its occupants bruised but otherwise uninjured. Strekalov and Titov's narrow escape is the only live use of a launch escape system in the history of human spaceflight.[5] Titov and Strekalov would subsequently celebrate the anniversary of their dramatic escape, calling it their "second birthday".[1] As it did not launch, the mission is known by its technical article designation Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L; it would have been Soyuz T-10, a codename that was instead used the following year.[1][2]

Strekalov's next spaceflight was aboard Soyuz T-11, with Yuri Malyshev and Indian cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma. The flight launched from Baikonur's Site 31 on 3 April 1984 and, unlike Strekalov's previous two attempts, successfully docked with Salyut-7.[1][2] The crew stayed on Salyut-7 until 11 April 1984, and returned to Earth not in the spacecraft in which they had come, but in the reentry module of Soyuz T-10, which was already docked at the space station.

From 1 August to 10 December 1990, he was the flight engineer on Soyuz TM-10's flight to Mir, with Gennady Manakov and Japanese reporter-cosmonaut Toyohiro Akiyama. At 130 days, this was his longest spaceflight.[2]

After this, Strekalov formally retired and became head of the civilian section of the cosmonaut department.[1] But he returned to flight status for the Shuttle–Mir Program and on 14 March 1995 he flew on Soyuz TM-21 to the Mir space station, accompanied by Vladimir Dezhurov and American astronaut Norman Thagard. The mission, designated EO-18, was the first non-US launch to carry an American into space. Although successful, Strekalov's time on Mir was fraught - the crew undertook a number of taxing spacewalks to repair the station, culminating in a dispute when mission controllers ordered an unplanned spacewalk to repair a stuck solar array. Strekalov, believing the proposal to be too dangerous, refused to perform it, and argued with his colleagues on the ground for several days until they acquiesced. On 7 July 1995, the Soyuz TM-21 crew returned to Earth, not on the Soyuz that had brought them, but aboard US Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-71) which had brought their relief.[1] Overall the mission lasted 115 days. Due to Strekalov's refusal, he was fined approximately US$10,000 in pension and benefit entitlements, but he took RSC Energia to arbitration and had the fine overturned.[1][3][6]

Strekalov continued to work for RSC Energia until his death.[1]

• Hero of the Soviet Union, twice (10 December 1980, 11 April 1984)[6]
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd class (7 September 1995) - for active participation in the preparation and successful implementation of long-term US-Russian space flight on the orbital scientific research complex Mir, displaying courage and heroism
• Three Orders of Lenin (10 December 1980, 1983, 11 April 1984)[2]
• Order of the October Revolution (10 December 1990) - for the successful implementation of spaceflight on the orbital scientific research complex Mir and displaying courage and heroism
• Medal "Veteran of Labour"
• Ashoka Chakra, Class I (India, 1984)[7]
• NASA Space Flight Medal (1995)
• Honoured Master of Sports (1981)
• Honorary Citizen of Queens (United States) and Mytischi (Russia)
• Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR