Aleksandr Kaleri

Cosmonaut career

Kaleri was selected as an Energia RSC cosmonaut candidate in April 1984. Between 1985 and 1986, he completed basic training and evaluation at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, and in 1987 he was qualified for flight assignment as a test cosmonaut. He trained as backup crew flight engineer for Mir-3 from 1 April to 9 December 1987, and for Mir-9 from January to April 1991. From 8 October 1991 to 25 February 1992, he trained as primary crew flight engineer for Mir-11.

His first extended Mir mission was a 145-day flight in 1992 aboard Soyuz-TM-14. From 17 August 1996 to 2 March 1997, he spent 197 days in space aboard Soyuz-TM-24 as Mir-22 flight engineer. In 2000, he performed his third spaceflight aboard Soyuz-TM-30 as Mir-28 flight engineer. He first flew to the ISS in 2003 with NASA astronaut Michael Foale on his fourth spaceflight, serving as Flight Engineer on Expedition 8 for 194 days from 18 October 2003 to 30 April 2004.

The Soyuz TMA-3 carrying Kaleri, Foale, and ESA astronaut André Kuipers landed 60 kilometers northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. Kaleri was a member of ISS Expedition 25/26, launched 7 October 2010 from Baikonur aboard Soyuz TMA-01M with Oleg Skripochka and Scott Kelly, serving as Soyuz commander. He arrived at the ISS after docking at 00:01 UTC on 10 October 2010 and remained until March 2011. During the mission, the crew participated in research including fundamental physics, biometric experiments, and investigations of crystal growth in space, as well as education outreach.

Kaleri has participated in five spacewalks, accumulating 23 EVA hours. His first spacewalk on 8 July 1992 with Aleksandr Viktorenko lasted 2 hours 3 minutes, inspecting Mir's gyrodynes. On 2 December 1996, he and Valery Korzun completed a 5 hour 57 minute spacewalk to connect a cooperative solar array. On 9 December 1996, they completed a 6 hour 36 minute spacewalk connecting the solar array, attaching a new Kurs docking antenna, and repairing the transceiver system.

On 12 May 2000, he and Sergei Zalyotin completed a five-hour spacewalk to inspect Mir's exterior, test a glue for sealing cracks, and examine the Progress M1-2 cargo spacecraft. On 26 February 2004, he and Michael Foale performed a 3 hour 55 minute spacewalk from the Pirs Docking Compartment, swapping experiment packages and mounting an instrumented dummy torso; the spacewalk was cut short due to a cooling system malfunction in Kaleri's spacesuit, with Kaleri reporting drops of water on the inside of his visor.