Valery Victorovich Ryumin
Valery Victorovich Ryumin was a Soviet and Russian engineer-cosmonaut whose career ran through nearly every layer of the Salyut 6 story and later returned to orbit during Shuttle-Mir. He was not only a in space; he also helped design, operate, and manage Soviet and Russian station programs from the ground.
- Born
- August 16, 1939
- Died
- June 6, 2022
- Birthplace
- Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk Krai,Soviet Union
Flights
4
Spacewalks
1
EVA time
1 hour, 23 minutes
In space
371 days, 17 hours, 24 minutes
Bio
Ryumin trained in spacecraft control systems and worked at Energia, where he helped prepare orbital-station hardware beginning with the Salyut era. His first flight, Soyuz 25, failed to dock with Salyut 6, but the failure changed Soviet crew-assignment rules by requiring at least one experienced cosmonaut on future station crews.
He returned successfully on Soyuz 32 / Soyuz 34 in 1979 for Salyut 6 EO-3, then flew Soyuz 35 / Soyuz 37 in 1980 for Salyut 6 EO-4. Those two long-duration missions made him one of the most experienced station cosmonauts of his generation.
After years in flight-director and Shuttle-Mir leadership roles, Ryumin flew again on STS-91 in 1998, the final Shuttle-Mir docking mission. His presence on that flight tied the Soviet station era directly to the U.S.-Russian partnership that led into the ISS.