Aleksandr Samokutyayev

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Samokutyayev (Александр Михайлович Самокутяев – born 13 March 1970 in Penza / Penza Oblast / Russian SFSR) is a Russian cosmonaut. Samokutyayev served as a Flight Engineer for the International Space Station (ISS) long duration Expedition 27/28 missions. He also served as the Soyuz TMA-21 commander. He was hired as a cosmonaut in the summer of 2003.

Personnel
Samokutyayev is married to Oksana Nikolaevna Samokutyayeva. They have one daughter named Anastasia Alexandrovna Samokutyayeva.

Education
In 1987—1988 Aleksandr was studied at Penza politechnical institute. Then he went to Chernigov and graduated from Chernigov Higher Military Pilot School after Lenin's Komsomol (HMPS) in 1992. Samokutyayev graduated from the Gagarin Air Force Academy as a pilot-engineer in 2000.

Awards
Samokutyayev has received various Russian Armed Force medals.

Experience
Samokutyayev has flown as pilot, senior pilot and deputy commander of air squadron, logging 680 hours of flight time and performed 250 parachute jumps. He is a qualified diver.

Upon graduation from the Gagarin Air Force Academy since 2000 he served at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center as the planning division head.

Cosmonaut career
On 29 May 2003 he was enlisted in the cosmonaut detachment to pass a course of general space training. prior to the enlistment, on 20 January 2003 he successfully received a positive medical confirmation by the Chief Medical Board. Samokutyayev qualified as a test-cosmonaut on 5 July 2005.

In July 2008 Samokutyayev was assigned to the backup crew for Expedition 25 to the ISS. Since then he joined the ISS advanced training as a backup commander and, from 2009, as a flight engineer. During the launch of Soyuz TMA-18 on 2 April 2010 he served as a backup commander of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Expedition 27/28
In October 2008 Samokutyayev was assigned to the prime crew of the 27th long duration expedition to the space station. On 7 October 2009 his assignment was confirmed by NASA press release No. 09-233.

Samokutyayev flew into space for the first time as a Flight Engineer for the ISS long duration Expedition 27/28 missions. The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft carrying Samokutyayev, cosmonaut Andrei Borisenko and NASA astronaut Ron Garan launched on schedule from the Baikonur Cosmodrome's Gagarin's Start launch pad, at 23:18:20 UTC on April 4, 2011. Samokutyayev served as Commander of Soyuz TMA-21. The launch of Soyuz TMA-21 was devoted to the 50th anniversary of the first space mission by Yuri Gagarin. Samokutyayev carried a small stuffed dog given to him by his daughter. Hanging in front of the crew, live NASA TV launch footage showed that the dog begun to float as the spacecraft soared skywards, an indication of the weightlessness of space.

After two days of solo flight, the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on April 6 at 23:09 UTC.

Samokutyayev concluded his 164 day stay aboard the Space Station, when his spaceship, Soyuz TMA-21 undocked from the Russian segment's Poisk module at 00:38 UTC on 16 September. On the same day, the Soyuz TMA-21 capsule carrying Samokutyayev, Borisenko and Ron Garan touched down (3:59:39 UTC) at 93 miles southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

Russian EVA #28
On 3 August 2011 Samokutyayev participated in his first spacewalk. He and cosmonaut Sergey Volkov worked for six hours and 23 minutes performing a variety of tasks for both science and maintenance outside the Russian segment of the ISS. Outside the Zvezda Service Module, Samokutyayev and Volkov installed laser communications equipment. They also, photographed an antenna with signs of degraded performance. After ground controllers took time to work on an antenna problem, the two cosmonauts also deployed a small satellite named Radioskaf-V which was originally planned for deployment at the beginning of the spacewalk. The satellite contained an amateur radio transmitter and a student experiment. The primary task of the spacewalk the relocation of the Strela 1 boom from the Pirs module to the Poisk module, had to be called off due to time constraints. The cosmonauts removed an antenna that helped guide the Poisk module to a docking in November 2009 and was returned to the ISS at the end of the spacewalk. They also successfully installed the materials science experiment – BIORISK on a handrail outside the Pirs module. BIORISK experiment studies the effect of microbes on spacecraft structures and whether solar activity affects microbial growth. Finally, Samokutyayev and Volkov took more photographs holding photos of the first cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, spacecraft designer Sergei Korolyov and Soviet astronautic theory pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky with Earth in the background before entering the Pirs module, closing the hatch and completing the Russian EVA #28.