This cosmonaut went to space from the USSR and returned to another country

In 1961, the first man on Earth conquered space. It was Yuri Gagarin. Since then, off-planet flights have become regular. One of them was noted for our country by an interesting fact: the crew flew out of the USSR and returned after the collapse – to Russia and the CIS countries.

In December 1990, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev began preparations for his second flight – participation in the ninth expedition to the Mir station.

The rocket was launched on May 18, 1991, with commander Anatoly Artsebarsky, flight engineer Krikalev and British cosmonaut Helen Sharman on board (it returned to Earth a week later). Over the summer, Krikalev, together with the commander, made six spacewalks and conducted numerous scientific experiments.

Sergei was due to return to Earth in 5 months, but he decided to stay on board as a flight engineer with the new crew. Thus, Krikalev spent 311 days in space!

He returned to Earth on March 25, 1992, when the Soviet Union had already ceased to exist. Therefore, for his long flight, Sergei had already received the title Hero of the Russian Federation (Star of the Hero of the Russian Federation No. 1). 1).

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Photo: Volkov V./TASS Newsreel, Valery Polyakov/TASS Newsreel, Albert Pushkarev