The first long-duration resident of the ISS, a cosmonaut, has died

American spacecraft on July 10, 2011 atlantis Arrived at the space station, and for nine days, four STS-135 astronauts joined Samokutyaev and his Expedition 28 colleagues in the orbiting laboratory. Not only was this the last time a shuttle would visit the ISS, but it was the final mission of the 30-year program.

On August 3, 2011, Samokutyaev performed his first spacewalk, venturing outside the ISS with Volkov to move instruments, set up a materials science experiment, and hand-deploy a microsatellite.

After 164 days in Earth orbit, Samokutyaev returned to Earth with Borisenko and Garan on Soyuz TMA-21, landing safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Samokutyaev returned to the ISS three years later, this time with Elena Serova – one of only two female astronauts in Roscosmos’ corps at the time and only the fourth to fly in space – and NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore on Soyuz TMA-14M. Samokutyaev spent nearly two months as the Expedition 41 flight engineer, sharing the space station with astronaut Max Surayev, NASA astronaut Reed Wiseman (later of Artemis II fame), and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst of Germany.

On October 22, 2014, Samokutyaev went out for his second career spacewalk, working with Surayev to remove unnecessary equipment and conduct a detailed photographic survey of the exterior of the Russian segment of the station. In total, Samokutyaev spent 10 hours and one minute on his two spacewalks.

Samokutyaev then transferred to the Expedition 42 crew with Serova and Wilmore, where he worked with his 2003 astronaut classmate Anton Shkaplerov, as well as NASA astronaut Terry Virts and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy. The trio returned to Earth on March 11, 2015, adding 167 days to Samokutyaev’s total of 331 days, 11 hours and 23 minutes in space.