Kondakova Elena Vladimirovna

KONDAKOVA

Elena Vladimirovna

Hero of the Russian Federation

80th cosmonaut of our country, 317th cosmonaut of the World

The first woman in the world to make a six-month space flight.

Elena Kondakova was born on March 30, 1957 in a Working Settlement of the Pushkinsky district of the Moscow region in a family of workers of the Royal OKB-1.

After graduating from secondary school No. 16 in Kaliningrad (now Korolev), she entered the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which she graduated with honors in the specialty "Production of aircraft". In the same 1980, she joined NPO Energia, where she began her career in the Main Operational Control Group (GOGU) for the space Flight of the Salyut-6 station, engaged in planning. A year later, she was already training the staff of GOGU. Since 1982, she has worked in the flight control group of the Salyut-7 station, and having gained experience, she decided to work in orbit herself. Her husband, the famous cosmonaut Valery Ryumin, did not want his wife to risk her life, especially since a little daughter Zhenya was growing up in the family, but still gave the go-ahead.

In 1989, she was enrolled in the cosmonaut detachment of NPO Energia and after completing general space training at the CPC in 1992, she became a test cosmonaut.

Elena Kondakova made her first space flight lasting 169 days, 5 hours, 21 minutes and 35 seconds from October 4, 1994 to March 22, 1995 on the Soyuz TM-20 spacecraft and the Mir orbital complex. It was an absolute world record for the duration of a space flight among female astronauts. Elena was awarded the title "Hero of the Russian Federation".

The second space flight was made on the American spacecraft "Atlantis" with a duration of 9 days, 5 hours, 19 minutes and 56 seconds. According to the STS-84 flight program, she visited the Mir orbital complex, where she assisted Vasily Tsibliev and Alexander Lazutkin in carrying out the flight program. Elena Kondakova became the first and only Russian female cosmonaut to fly on an American Space Shuttle-type ship.

After the flight, she continued her training, but in 1999 she left the cosmonaut squad and RSC Energia due to her election to the State Duma of the Russian Federation. Working in the Duma in the Budget and Taxes Committee, Elena Kondakova entered and in 2006 successfully graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. In 2011, at her own request, Elena Vladimirovna resigned from the State Duma and a year later, as a professional diplomat, became the trade representative of Russia in Switzerland, where she worked for six years, after which she went on a well-deserved rest and took up the upbringing of grandchildren.