Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev
Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev is a retired Soviet engineer-cosmonaut whose three Soyuz flights placed him at the center of early , docking, crew transfer, and station-docking attempts. His work helped move Soyuz from experimental spacecraft toward the station ferry role it later held for decades.
- Born
- July 13, 1934
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Zhizdra, Kaluga Oblast,Soviet Union
Flights
3
Spacewalks
1
EVA time
37 minutes
In space
8 days, 22 hours, 20 minutes
Bio
Yeliseyev trained as an engineer at Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School and worked in the Korolev design bureau before cosmonaut selection. That technical path made him part of the civilian specialist tradition rather than the military-pilot stream.
His first spaceflight launched on Soyuz 5 in January 1969. After docking with Soyuz 4, Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov performed an external crew transfer, crossing through open space because the early Soyuz spacecraft had no internal docking tunnel.
Yeliseyev later flew Soyuz 8 during the three-spacecraft Soyuz 6/7/8 operation and Soyuz 10, the first crewed mission to reach Salyut 1. Soyuz 10 docked mechanically but could not achieve a safe hard dock for crew transfer, making the flight a crucial step toward later station operations.