Official NASA Biography - 1997

NAME: Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyev

Pilot-Cosmonaut, Colonel. Resides in Star City.

BIRTHPLACE AND DATE:

Born January 16, 1948, in Riga.

PARENTS:

Yakov Mikhailovich Solovyev, father, deceased in 1980. Antonia Pavlovna Soloveva, mother, resides in Riga.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:

Brown hair, blue eyes; 5 feet 5 inches; 179 pounds.

EDUCATION:

Graduated from the Lenin Komsomol Chernigov Higher Military Aviation School in 1972.

MARITAL STATUS:

Married to Natalya Vasilyevna Solovyeva (nee Katyshevtseva).

CHILDREN:

Two sons, Gennady in 1975, and Illya in 1980.

HONORS:

Awarded the Order of Lenin and the "Gold Star" medal, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Friendship of Peoples, and six Armed Forces medals.

EXPERIENCE:

Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyev served from 1972 to 1976 as a senior pilot and group commander in the Far Eastern Military District. Since August 1976, he has been a student-cosmonaut at the Yuri A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. In January 1979, he completed general space training. He is a test pilot third class and a test cosmonaut. From 1979 to 1984, he underwent training for a flight aboard the Soyuz-T transport vehicle and the Salyut-7 and Mir orbital stations as part of a group. In 1981, he was made part of a stand-by crew as a commander of a primary expedition. In 1987, he was the commander of a back-up Soviet-Sylian crew for an expedition that visited the Mir Station. His first flight in 1988, lasted 9 days and was performed as part of an international Soviet-Bulgalian crew comprised of A.Y. Solovyev, B.P. Savinykh. and A. Aleksandrov, of Bulgaria. From February 11 to August 9, 1990, Colonel Solovyev accomplished a long-duration (179-day) flight aboard th At present, he is the commander of the back-up Russian crew of the Mir-18 expedition on the Soyuz-TM-21 spacecraft as part of the Mir-Shuttle program.

Call sign: Rodnik (Spring - water spring)

• Soyuz T-15A - - 1986 Early - Assignment: Proposed Backup Crew.

  Final expedition to Salyut 7 station was cancelled when control was lost.

• Soyuz T-15B - - 1986 June - Assignment: Proposed Backup Crew.

  Planned flight to Salyut 7. Breakdown of Salyut 7, exhaustion of stock of Soyuz T spacecraft led to cancellation of mission.

• Soyuz T-15C - - 1986 September - Assignment: Proposed Backup Crew.

  To have docked with Mir. Cancelled all-female flight to be launched on International Woman's Day. Breakdown of Salyut 7, exhaustion of stock of Soyuz T spacecraft, and official resistance led to cancellation of the mission. Officially cancelled due to birth of Savitskaya's baby. No female cosmonauts would be in training again until a decade later.

• Soyuz TM-3 - - 1987 Jul 22 - Assignment: Backup Crew. Flight details: Soyuz TM-3.

  Manned three crew. Transported to the Mir orbital space station a Soviet-Syrian crew comprising cosmonauts A S Viktorenko, A P Aleksandrov and M A Faris to conduct joint research and experiments with cosmonauts Y Romanenko and A Laveykin. Maneuvered from initial 231 X 217 km orbit to Mir's 311 X 359 km orbit. Docked with rear Mir port at 3:30 GMT 24 July. Undocked with rear port 30 July and docked to forward port. Undocked 05:55 GMT 29 December. Returned Aleksandrov, Yuri Romanenko (Soyuz TM-2), Anatoly Levchenko (Soyuz TM-4) to Earth. Recovered December 29, 1987 09:16 GMT. Landed near Arkalyk.

• Soyuz TM-5 - - 1988 Jun 7 - Assignment: Prime Crew. Flight Time: 9.84 days. Flight details: Soyuz TM-5.

  Transported to the Mir orbital station a Soviet/Bulgarian crew comprising cosmonauts A Y Solovyev, V P Savinykh and A P Aleksandrov (Bulgaria) to conduct joint research and experiments with cosmonauts V G Titov and M K Manarov. Interim orbit 343 x 282 km. Maneuvered to Mir's 355 x 349 km orbit. Docked 15:57 GMT 9 June to Mir's aft port. Moved to forward port 18 June. Undocked 22:55 GMT 5 September. Jettisoned Orbital Module 23:35 GMT 5 September. Planned landing 02:15 September 6 1988 failed due to confusion of infrared horizon sensors. Repeat retrofire attempt one orbit later resulted in a partial burn only. The crew had to spend a tense 24 hours in the cramped Descent Module (the Orbital Module having already been jettisoned before the retrofire burn) before making last chance deorbit. Finally Lyakhov and Afghani cosmonaut Mohmand (Soyuz TM-6) returned safely to Earth and landed September 7, 1988 00:50 GMT, 160 km SE Dzhezkazgan.

• Soyuz TM-8 - - 1989 Sep 5 - Assignment: Backup Crew. Flight details: Soyuz TM-8.

  Manned two crew. Mir Expedition EO-05. Docked with Mir 8 September. Transported to the Mir orbital station a team consisting of A S Viktorenko, commander of the spacecraft, and A A Serebrov, on-board engineer, to carry out scientific and technological research and experiments. Flight cost 80 million rubles. Expected return 25 million rubles net profit.

• Soyuz TM-9 - - 1990 Feb 11 - Assignment: Prime Crew. Flight Time: 179.05 days. Flight details: Soyuz TM-9.

  Manned two crew. Mir Expedition EO-06. Docked with Mir. Transported to the Mir orbital station a crew comprising the cosmonauts A Y Solovyov and A N Balandin to conduct an extensive programme of geophysical and astrophysical research, experiments on biology and biotechnology and work on space materials science. Recovered August 9, 1990 07:35 GMT. Landed 70 km from Arkalyk at 50 deg 51'E 67 deg 17' N.

• EVA Soyuz TM-9-1 - - 1990 Jul 17 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 7.27 hours.

  Repaired Soyuz TM-9 insulation rip.

• EVA Soyuz TM-9-2 - - 1990 Jul 26 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.52 hours.

  Dismantled equipment. Temporarily closed damaged hatch.

• Soyuz TM-14a - - 1991 End - Assignment: Proposed Backup Crew.

  Soyuz TM-13 and TM-14 crews were reshuffled extensively due to commercial seat bookings by Austria and Germany and the necessity of flying a Kazakh-born cosmonaut as part of the Baikonur rental agreement. This was the original crew assignment. The Kazakh researchers were moved to the earlier Soyuz TM-13 flight.

• Soyuz TM-14 - - 1992 Mar 17 - Assignment: Backup Crew. Flight details: Soyuz TM-14.

  Mir Expedition EO-11. Joint flight with Germany. Docked at the Kvant rear port at 12:33 GMT on March 19. The Soyuz TM-14 crew, Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Kaleri, returned to Earth together with French astronaut Michel Tognini. The Soyuz TM-14 undocked from Mir at 21:47 GMT on Aug 9, and landed in Kazakhstan at 01:07 GMT on August 10.

• Soyuz TM-15 - - 1992 Jul 27 - Assignment: Prime Crew. Flight Time: 188.90 days. Flight details: Soyuz TM-15.

  Mir Expedition EO-12. Russian astronauts Solovyov and Avdeev and French astronaut Tognini were inserted into an initial 190 x 200 km orbit inclined 51.6 deg. Later on July 27 they maneuvered to a 223 x 343 km orbit, and on July 28 docked with Mir in its 405 x 410 km orbit. Aleksandr Solovyov and Sergey Avdeev undocked from the Mir complex aboard Soyuz TM-15 on February 1 and landed the same day in Kazakhstan after six months in space at 03:58 GMT. Soyuz TM-15's flight was an in-orbit record for a Soyuz spaceship - 188 days 21 h 39 m.

• EVA Soyuz TM-15-1 - - 1992 Sep 3 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.93 hours.

  Began installation of VDU thruster pod on Sofora tower.

• EVA Soyuz TM-15-2 - - 1992 Sep 7 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 5.13 hours.

  Continued installation of VDU thruster pod on Sofora tower.

• EVA Soyuz TM-15-3 - - 1992 Sep 11 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 5.73 hours.

  Completed installation of VDU thruster pod on Sofora tower.

• EVA Soyuz TM-15-4 - - 1992 Sep 15 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.55 hours.

  Installed Kurs docking system antenna on Kristall module.

• Soyuz TM-20 - - 1994 Oct 3 - Assignment: Backup Crew. Flight details: Soyuz TM-20.

  Mir Expedition EO-17. Docked at the Mir forward port at 00:28 on 1994 October 6. The Mir crew of Viktorenko, Kondakova and Polyakov boarded Soyuz TM-20 on January 11, and undocked from Mir's front port at 09:00 GMT. The spacecraft withdrew to about two hundred metres from Mir and then redocked in a test of the automatic Kurs system, which had failed in Progress M-24's attempted docking. Redocking came at 09:25 GMT. Soyuz TM-20 landed 22 km northeast of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan at 04:04 GMT on March 22, 1995.

• STS-71 - - 1995 Jun 27 - Assignment: Prime Crew. Flight Time: 75.47 days. Flight details: STS-71.

  Mir Expedition EO-19. Transferred Budarin, Solovyov to Mir, returned Soyuz TM-21 crew to Earth. After undocking from Mir on July 4, Atlantis spent several days on orbit, carrying out medical research work with the Spacelab-Mir module in the cargo bay. Payloads: Shuttle/Mir Mission 1, Spacelab-Mir, IMAX camera, Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX).

• EVA STS-71-1 - - 1995 Jul 14 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 5.57 hours.

  Repaired solar array. Inspected exterior of station.

• EVA STS-71-2 - - 1995 Jul 19 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.13 hours.

  Retrieved TREK detector.

• EVA STS-71-3 - - 1995 Jul 21 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 5.58 hours.

  Installed Miras spectrometer.

• Soyuz TM-26 - - 1997 Aug 5 - Assignment: Prime Crew. Flight Time: 197.73 days. Flight details: Soyuz TM-26.

  Mir Expedition EO-24. The Soyuz docked manually at 17:02 GMT August 7. Over the next six months the crew undertook seven internal and external spacewalks to repair the crippled space station. Solovyov and Vinogradov together with French astronaut Eyharts (launched aboard Soyuz TM-27) undocked from the forward port on Mir at 05:52 GMT on February 19, 1998, fired their deorbit engines at 08:16 GMT and landed in Kazakstan at 50 deg 11 N, 67 deg 31 E at 09:10 GMT.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-1 - - 1997 Aug 22 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.27 hours.

  Connected Spektr power cables. Surveyed interior of depressurised Spektr module. Retrieved equipment and belongings from module.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-2 - - 1997 Sep 6 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 6.00 hours.

  Inspected exterior of Spektr. Moved solar arrays.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-3 - - 1997 Oct 20 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 6.63 hours.

  Installed new hatch to reconnect Spektr solar array cable with Mir power bus.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-4 - - 1997 Nov 3 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 6.07 hours.

  Removed solar array from Kvant module.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-5 - - 1997 Nov 6 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 6.20 hours.

  Installed solar array.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-6 - - 1998 Jan 9 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.10 hours.

  Recovered equipment; began repairs on leaky Kvant-2 airlock. Examination of airlock indicated cause was loose belt, resulting in 10 mm gap.

• EVA Soyuz TM-26-7 - - 1998 Jan 14 - Assignment: EVA Crew. EVA Duration: 3.00 hours.

  Inspected station exterior.