Alexander Misurkin

Did You Know?

• Misurkin graduated from the Armavir Military Aviation Institute in October 1999 with a gold medal as a pilot-engineer.
• Soyuz TMA-08M, Misurkin's first flight, was the first crewed mission to use a fast rendezvous, reaching the ISS in less than six hours instead of the usual two days.

Cosmonaut career

Approved as a cosmonaut candidate in October 2006, Misurkin joined the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) corps. He completed basic training from February 2007 to June 2009, qualifying as a test-cosmonaut on 9 June 2009. From August 2009 to February 2011 he took advanced training in the ISS program, and from January 2011 he trained as backup flight engineer for Expeditions 33/34 and Soyuz TMA-M. In 2014 he joined the ESA CAVES mission alongside Scott Tingle, Luca Parmitano, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Matthias Maurer.

Misurkin launched on Soyuz TMA-08M on 28 March 2013, the first crewed flight to use a fast rendezvous that reached the ISS in under six hours, and joined Expedition 35. On 2 February 2018, he performed an 8-hour 13-minute spacewalk with Anton Shkaplerov to replace an electronics box for a high-gain communications antenna, setting a record for the longest Russian spacewalk. In December 2021, he commanded Soyuz MS-20, carrying space tourists Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano for a 12-day mission, landing on 20 December.