Pavel Popovich, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova, Valery Bykovsky, Andriyan Nikolayev and Gherman Titov at a TV studio (1963)

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Another photo from the same session as this one. Vladimir Komarov helped Yevgeni Khrunov on the left and Yuri Gagarin assists Alexei Yeliseyev on the right. I’ve found out that this is from training of the planned Soyuz 1 and 2 missions. Soyuz 1 would dock to Soyuz 2 with Khrunov and Yeliseyev transferring from 2 to 1. However the flight of Soyuz 2 was cancelled when Soyuz 1 went so badly. Gagarin was Komarov’s backup. Khrunov and Yeliseyev eventually made a transfer in 1969 on the Soyuz 4 and 5 mission.

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This is my new favourite crew portrait. Here’s the Soyuz T-8 crew: Aleksandr Serebrov, Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov. Usually cosmonauts keep their hands in their laps, but I love how Titov is holding onto Serebrov’s arm. Unfortunately during launch the radar antenna used to dock with Salyut was damaged and they could not dock with the station. The crew had to return back to Earth after only 2 days in space. (1983)

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When Soyuz TMA-05M landed this past week, a landing marker was put in, which I had never seen before. So I did a bit of investigating. I wasn’t able to find many like the Soyuz TMA-05M one, most of the markers are permanent statues.

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Two cosmonauts celebrate their birthday today. Interestingly both are Aleksandrs and have a moustache. Aleksandr Lazutkin had a 184 day mission aboard Mir in 1997. He is now the head of the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow. Aleksandr Poleshchuk also spent time on Mir for 179 days in 1989.

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Three new very happy crew members joined the ISS this morning. This makes Oleg Novitsky the third Belarusian in space, after Pyotr Klimuk and Vladimir Kovalyonok. If you want to hear all the greetings to the new crew the video is here.

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A few scenes from the prelaunch preparations of Soyuz TMA-06M. They launched yesterday and will arrive at the ISS tomorrow morning.

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They’re profiling the crew on NASA TV and I thought these younger pictures of the cosmonauts were too cute not to share. 

Soyuz TMA-06M was rolled out to the launch pad today. It’s bad luck for the prime crew to attend the rollout of their Soyuz, so the backup crew get to watch. The prime crew gets their hair cut instead.

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The crew of Soyuz TM-2 during training: Aleksandr Laveykin (blue) and Yuri Romanenko (orange). (1987)

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Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Svetlana Savitskaya before the launch of Soyuz T-12. (1984)

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It was everybody’s favourite day at Baikonur: press day! The Soyuz crews train, play games, exercise and plant their traditional trees all while being closely followed by photographers and video cameras. Though I suppose the cosmonauts are glad when it’s over and not have a lens pointed their direction.

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Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov at an event celebrating the latter’s Vostok-2 flight. Andriyan Nikolayev is on the very left, who would fly Vostok-3 next year. (1961)

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The crews of Soyuz TMA-06M left Star City for Baikonur yesterday. Their families saw them off. They even had a cheering section when they landed in Kazakhstan. They launch on October 23. (I covet Yevgeny Tarelkin’s wife’s coats. She had a red one at Red Square and now a houndstooth one.) 

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Yuri Gagarin and friends.

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