Soyuz TM-22

Crew

Yuri Gidzenko

Status: Retired
3/26/1962 -
Nationality: Russian
Type: Government
First Flight: 9/3/1995
Last Flight: 4/25/2002

Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko (Russian: Гидзенко, Юрий Павлович; born March 26, 1962) 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 International Space Stations. 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.

Sergei Avdeyev

Status: Retired
1/1/1956 -
Nationality: Russian
Type: Government
First Flight: 7/27/1992
Last Flight: 8/13/1998

Sergei Vasilyevich Avdeyev (Сергей Васильеви Авдеев; born 1 January 1956) is a Russian engineer and cosmonaut.

Avdeyev was born in Chapayevsk, Samara Oblast (formerly Kuybyshev Oblast), Russian SFSR. He graduated from Moscow Physics-Engineering Institute in 1979 as an engineer-physicist. From 1979 to 1987 he worked as an engineer for NPO Energiya. He was selected as a cosmonaut as part of the Energia Engineer Group 9 on 26 March 1987. His basic cosmonaut training was from December 1987 through to July 1989. He retired as a cosmonaut on 14 February 2003.

Avdeyev at one point held the record for cumulative time spent in space with 747.59 days in earth orbit, accumulated through three tours of duty aboard the Mir Space Station. He has orbited the earth 11,968 times traveling about 515,000,000 kilometers.

Thomas Reiter

Status: Retired
5/23/1958 -
Nationality: German
Type: Government
First Flight: 9/3/1995
Last Flight: 7/4/2006

Thomas Arthur Reiter (born 23 May 1958 in Frankfurt, West Germany) is a retired European astronaut and is a Brigadier General in the German Air Force currently working as ESA Interagency Coordinator and Advisor to the Director General at the European Space Agency (ESA). He was one of the top 25 astronauts in terms of total time in space. With his wife and two sons he lives near Oldenburg in Lower Saxony.

Rocket

Soyuz-U2 – Soviet Space Program

• Family: Soyuz-U
• Length: 34.54 m
• Diameter: 2.95 m
• Launch Mass: 298 T
• Low Earth Orbit Capacity: 7050 kg

The Soyuz-U2 was manufactured by Soviet Space Program with the first launch on 1982-12-23. Soyuz-U2 has 71 successful launches and 0 failed launches with a total of 71 launches. The Soyuz-U2 was a Soviet, later Russian, carrier rocket. It was derived from the Soyuz-U, and a member of the R-7 family of rockets. It featured increased performance compared with the baseline Soyuz-U, due to the use of syntin propellant, as opposed to RP-1 paraffin, used on the Soyuz-U.

Agency

Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) – RFSA

• Type: Government
• Abbreviation: RFSA
• Administration: Administrator: Yuri Borisov
• Founded: 1992
• Launchers: Soyuz
• Spacecraft: Soyuz
• Country: RUS

The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, commonly known as Roscosmos, is the governmental body responsible for the space science program of the Russian Federation and general aerospace research. Soyuz has many launch locations the Russian sites are Baikonur, Plesetsk and Vostochny however Ariane also purchases the vehicle and launches it from French Guiana.