Talgat Amangeldyuly Musabayev is a Kazakh test pilot and former cosmonaut who flew on three spaceflights. His first two spaceflights were long-duration stays aboard the Russian space station Mir. His third spaceflight was a short duration visiting mission to the International Space Station, which also carried the first paying space tourist Dennis Tito. He retired as a cosmonaut in November 2003. Since 2007 he has been head of KazCosmos, Kazakhstan's National Space Agency.
Soyuz TM-19 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to Mir. It launched on 1 July 1994, at 12:24:50 UTC.
Aleksandr "Sasha" Yuriyevich Kaleri is a former Russian cosmonaut and veteran of extended stays on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Station (ISS). Kaleri has most recently been in space in 2010 and 2011 aboard the ISS serving as a flight engineer for the long duration Expedition 25/26 missions. He has spent the fifth-longest time in space of any person, and the longest time in space of any person not born in what is now Russia.
Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko is a Russian cosmonaut. He was a test cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (TsPK). Gidzenko has flown into space three times and has lived on board the Mir and the International Space Station. He has also conducted two career spacewalks. Although he retired on July 15, 2001, he continued his employment by a special contract until Soyuz TM-34 concluded. Since 2004 to May 2009, Gidzenko was the Director of the 3rd department within the TsPK. Since May 2009 he serves as the Deputy Chief of Cosmonaut Training Center TsPK.
Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev is a Russian mechanical engineer, former cosmonaut and former head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
Gennady Ivanovich Padalka is a Russian Air Force officer and a Roscosmos cosmonaut. Padalka currently holds the world record for the most time spent in space, at 879 days. He worked on both Mir and the International Space Station.
Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyev is a retired Russian and Soviet cosmonaut and pilot. Solovyev was born on January 16, 1948, in Riga, Latvia. Solovyev holds the world record on the number of spacewalks performed (16), and accumulated time spent spacewalking.
Gennady Mikhailovich Strekalov was an engineer, cosmonaut, and administrator at Russian aerospace firm RSC Energia. He flew into space five times and lived aboard the Salyut 6, Salyut 7, and Mir space stations, spending over 268 days in space. The catastrophic explosion of a Soyuz rocket in 1983 led to him being one of only four people to use a launch escape system. He was decorated twice as Hero of the Soviet Union and received the Ashoka Chakra from India.
Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov is a retired Russian Air Force Colonel and former cosmonaut. He has participated in four spaceflight missions. The catastrophic explosion of a Soyuz rocket in 1983 led to him being one of only four people to use a launch escape system. He is married to Alexandra Kozlova, they have two children.
Soyuz TM-6 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to Mir. It was launched on 29 August 1988, at 04:23:11 UTC, for the station's third long-duration expedition, Mir EO-3. The three-person crew that was launched consisted of Research Doctor Valeri Polyakov, who became part of the EO-3 crew, as well as the two crew members of the week-long mission Mir EP-3, which included the first ever Afghan cosmonaut, Abdul Ahad Mohmand.
Soyuz TM-8 was a 1989 spaceflight which carried the fifth long duration crew to the Soviet space station Mir. It was part of the Soyuz-TM series of spacecraft, which were the fourth generation of the Soviet Soyuz. Soyuz TM-8 was the eighth crewed spaceflight to Mir, and spent 166 days in orbit.
Soyuz TM-22 was a Soyuz spaceflight to the Soviet space station Mir. It launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome Launch Pad 1 on September 3, 1995. After two days of free flight, the crew docked with Mir to become Mir Principal Expedition 20 and Euromir 95. Mir 20 was a harbinger of the multinational missions that would be typical of the International Space Station. After 179 days, 1 hour and 42 minutes on orbit, Reiter obtained the record for spaceflight duration by a Western European.
Soyuz TM-23 was a Soyuz spaceflight which launched on February 21, 1996, to Mir. The spacecraft launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, and after two days of flight, Yuri Onufrienko and Yury Usachov docked with Mir and became the 21st resident crew of the Station. On September 2, 1996, after 191 days docked with Mir, the ship undocked with the launch crew and Claudie André-Deshays onboard, before eventually landing 107 km (66 mi) south west of Akmola, Kazakhstan.
Soyuz TM-30, also known as Mir EO-28, was a Soyuz mission, the 39th and final human spaceflight to the Mir space station. The crew of the mission was sent by MirCorp, a privately funded company, to reactivate and repair the station. The crew also resupplied the station and boosted the station to an orbit with a low point (perigee) of 360 and a high point (apogee) of 378 kilometers ; the boost in the station's orbit was done by utilizing the engines of the Progress M1-1 and M1-2 spacecraft. At that time a transit between Mir and the International Space Station was already impossible - such a transfer was deemed undesired by NASA - and the orbital plane of ISS had been chosen some time before to be around 120 degrees away from that of Mir. The mission was the first privately funded mission to a space station.
Pavel Vladimirovich Vinogradov is a former cosmonaut and commander of the International Space Station. As of January 2023, he has flown into space three times, aboard Mir and the International Space Station, and was one of the top 10 astronauts in terms of total time in space after his third spaceflight. Vinogradov has also conducted seven spacewalks in his cosmonaut career, and holds the record for the oldest person to perform a spacewalk.
Expedition 2 was the second long-duration spaceflight aboard the International Space Station, immediately following Expedition 1. Its three-person crew stayed aboard the station from March to August 2001. In addition to station maintenance, the crew assisted in several station assembly missions, welcomed the first space tourist Dennis Tito, and conducted some scientific experiments.
Mir EO-3 was an expedition to the space station Mir. The crew consisted of 3 people, Musa Manarov (Commander), Vladimir Titov and Valeri Polyakov. Manarov and Titov arrived at the station in December 1987 on Soyuz TM-4, while Polyakov arrived much later, in August 1988 on Soyuz TM-6. After the arrival of Polyakov, medical experiments became more intensive.
Mir EO-4 was the fourth long-duration expedition to the Soviet space station Mir. The expedition began in November 1988, when crew members Commander Aleksandr Volkov and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev arrived at the station via the spacecraft Soyuz TM-7. The third crew member of EO-4, Valeri Polyakov, was already aboard Mir, having arrived in August 1988 part way through the previous expedition, Mir EO-3.
Mir EO-6 was the sixth long duration expedition to the space station Mir. The two crew members were Anatoli Soloviyov (Commander) and Aleksandr Balandin.
Mir EO-8 was the eighth crewed expedition to the space station Mir, lasting from December 1990 to May 1991. The crew, consisting of Russian cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, launched along with space journalist Toyohiro Akiyama on December 2, 1990 aboard Soyuz TM-11. Akiyama returned aboard Soyuz TM-10 with the outgoing Mir EO-7 crew on December 10. Afanasyev and Manarov returned aboard Soyuz TM-11 on May 26, 1991.
