Nikolai Mikhailovich Budarin
Nikolai Mikhailovich Budarin is a retired Russian cosmonaut and mechanical engineer whose career spans Shuttle-Mir and the early International . He completed three long-duration missions and became one of the experienced Russian specialists of the Mir/ISS transition era.
- Born
- April 29, 1953
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Kirya,Soviet Union
Flights
3
Spacewalks
8
EVA time
44 hours, 25 minutes
In space
444 days, 1 hour, 25 minutes
Bio
Budarin worked as an engineer before being selected as a cosmonaut candidate in 1989. His first flight came during Shuttle-Mir, when he launched on Atlantis during STS-71 and returned aboard Soyuz TM-21 after a long-duration Mir assignment.
He returned to Mir in 1998 on Soyuz TM-27 for Mir EO-25, a mission that continued complex late-Mir operations. His final flight launched on STS-113 to the ISS, where he served on 6 and returned on Soyuz TMA-1 after the Columbia disaster changed shuttle return planning. Counting Mir EO-19, Mir EO-25, or Expedition 6 as separate flight cards would overstate the number of launches.