Aleksandr Nikolayevich Balandin Status: Retired 7/30/1953 – Nationality: Russian Type: Government Agency: Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) Aleksandr Nikolayevich Balandin (Russian: Александр Николаевич Баландин) (born July 30, 1953) is a Russian cosmonaut. He is married with two children. He was selected as a cosmonaut on December 1, 1978, and retired on October 17, 1994. He flew as a flight engineer on Soyuz TM-9. He worked at NPO Energia until 1994, and was then President of Lendint-Association until 2000