Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov

Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov was a Russian-born Soviet cosmonaut who served as the flight engineer on Soyuz 22 and Soyuz T-2. Aksyonov was born on 1 February 1935 in Giblitsy in the Kasimovsky District to a Russian family. He became orphaned in his youth, with his father Viktor Stepanovich Zhivoglyadov being killed in action in 1944 on the Eastern Front of World War II. In 1963 he graduated from the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering. As a tester, Aksyonov flew over 250 flights on laboratory aircraft and worked in simulations of zero gravity. On 15 September 1976, he was launched into space for the first time, serving as a flight engineer on Soyuz 22, with Valery Bykovsky in command. On 5 June 1980, he was launched into space as the flight engineer on the Soyuz T-2 with Yuri Malyshev in command to visit the Salyut 6 space station. In total he spent 11 days 20 hours and 11 minutes in space. From 1983 to 1992, he was deputy chairman of the board of the Soviet Peace Fund. After retiring from the cosmonaut program in 1988, he became director of the State Research Center for the Study of Natural Resources of the State Hydrometeorological Service. He died on 9 April 2024, at the age of 89.