As a prominent rocket scientist, he is a veteran of six space flights and ranks third to Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko for the amount of time in space: a total of 803 days, 9 hours, and 39 minutes.
Krikalev was stranded on board the Mir during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As the country that had sent him into space no longer existed, his return was delayed and he stayed in space for 311 consecutive days, twice as long as the mission had originally called for. He retired from spaceflight in 2007 and was working as vice president of Space Corporation Energia.
Speaker
Sergei Krikalev
Executive Director for Human Space Flights, State Space Corporation “ROSCOSMOS”, Russia
