Viktor Savinykh

Viktor Savinykh trains as a geodesist and optical engineer before joining the cosmonaut corps, an expert in the instruments the stations carry.

Savinykh makes his first long-duration flight, 74 days 17 hours 37 minutes, learning the routines of station life that will save him four years later.

Salyut 7 falls silent and freezes, tumbling and powerless. Dzhanibekov and Savinykh chase it down, dock manually with a dead target, and revive it in the cold and dark, one of the most impressive in-space repairs in history.

Launched on 6 June 1985 and docking manually on 8 June, Savinykh and Dzhanibekov board the frozen, tumbling Salyut 7: frost on the walls and instruments, no power after a failed sun sensor stopped the batteries recharging. Within days they bring it back to life in gloves and hats, one of the most impressive in-space repairs in history.

After the Soyuz TM-5 mission of June 1988, Savinykh is elected rector of MIIGAiK in 1988, takes office in 1989 and becomes a leading figure in Russian geodesy, a link between spaceflight and Earth science.

Elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2006 and a full member in 2019, Savinykh remains a public authority on the station era, one of the last cosmonauts who kept a Soviet station alive by hand.