Oleg Kononenko

After school, Oleg Kononenko was not able to enter the Kharkov Aviation Institute the first time. He returned home, worked for a year in the tool shop of the Türkmenabat Airport aviation technical base.[2] The second attempt was successful. Kononenko graduated from the N. E. Zhukovskiy Kharkiv Aviation Institute in 1988 as a mechanical engineer.[1]

Kononenko was a Flight Engineer on both the Expedition 17 mission to the International Space Station, and the Soyuz TMA-12 mission that flew him there. The crew launched on 8 April 2008, and landed on 24 October 2008.[1] Kononenko spent 199 days in space.[3]

Kononenko returned to Earth with Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov, and spaceflight participant Richard Garriott (who launched aboard Soyuz TMA-13 to the ISS on 12 October 2008 with the Expedition 18 crew).[4][5] They landed at 11:37 p.m EDT 55 miles north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. They were flown to the Baikonur Cosmodrome by helicopter, and then went on to Zvezdny Gorodok (Star City), Moscow.[6][7][8]

On 21 December 2011, Kononenko, along with André Kuipers and Donald Pettit, launched to the International Space Station to join the crew of Expedition 30.[9] He, along with his fellow crewmembers, arrived at the space station on December 23.[10] They returned to Earth on 1 July 2012.[11]

Spacewalker Oleg Kononenko seen outside the Space Station on 12 February 2012.

Kononenko conducted his first spacewalk on 10 July 2008 when he ventured into space from the Pirs docking compartment airlock of the ISS.[12] He and cosmonaut Volkov inspected their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft and retrieved a pyro bolt from it. This spacewalk lasted 6 hours and 18 minutes.

On 15 July 2008 Kononenko again went outside from Pirs to conduct his second spacewalk.[13] Kononenko and Volkov installed one experiment and retrieved another. They also continued to outfit the station's exterior, including the installation of a docking target on the Zvezda service module. The spacewalk was in Russian Orlan suits and Kononenko wore an Orlan suit with blue stripes. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 54 minutes.

On 12 February 2012, Kononenko and colleague cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov were scheduled to conduct a six-hour spacewalk outside the ISS. They installed shields on the Zvezda Service Module to protect it from micrometeoroid orbital debris and moved the Strela 1 crane from the Pirs docking compartment to the Poisk Mini Research Module (MRM-2). The two cosmonauts also installed struts on a ladder used by spacewalkers on the Pirs Docking Compartment. As another get-ahead task, they also installed an experiment called Vynoslivost on the Poisk Mini Research Module. As part of the Vynoslivost or "Endurance" experiment, two trays of metal samples would be left exposed on the surface of the Poisk Module.[14]

On 22 July 2015, Kononenko launched to the International Space Station as Soyuz Commander, together with NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Soyuz-TMA-17M. They spent 5 months on the International Space Station as members of the Expedition 44 and Expedition 45 Crews. The trio returned to Earth in rare night landing on 11 December 2015, when their Soyuz TMA-17M landed safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan. Kononenko spent 142 days in space on his third mission.

Kononenko on EVA to examine the external hull of Soyuz MS-09, standing on a Strela crane, on 11 December 2018

Kononenko launched towards the ISS for the fourth time as Soyuz Commander of Soyuz MS-11 on 3 December 2018. He was originally scheduled to be serving as Flight Engineer on Expedition 58 and Commander on Expedition 59, although due to the launch failure of Soyuz MS-10 on 11 October 2018, the original Expedition 58 Commander, Aleksey Ovchinin was no longer aboard the station for Expedition 58, therefore Kononenko commanded both Expedition 58 and Expedition 59. Expedition 58 started on 20 December 2018 with the departure of Soyuz MS-09.[15] Kononenko and fellow crew members Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques returned to Earth on 24 June 2019, after 203 days 15 hours and 16 minutes in space.[16]

Kononenko always warmly recalls his stay in his motherland - Turkmenistan.[17][18] On 31 December 2018 Kononenko showed the flag of Turkmenistan and the book "Turkmenistan is the heart of the Great Silk Road" of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov from the ISS and wishes Happy New Year from the orbit of all Turkmenistan citizens.[19] The astronaut also noted that he has special feelings for the country where he was born and grew up, proud and rejoiced at her achievements.[20]

In June 2020, Kononenko announced that he was planned to return to the ISS. In September 2023, he launched aboard Soyuz MS-23. He is assigned for an one year long mission with his Soyuz MS-24 crewmate, Nikolai Chub that started on September 25, 2023. If the mission lasts 300-365 days, Kononenko will have spent a total of 1,036-1,101 days in space, exceeding the current record of 878 days by Gennady Padalka. He will thus also become the first person to stay 1,000 days in space.