Oleg Kotov

Oleg Valeriyevich Kotov (Олег Валериевич Котов) was born on October 27, 1965, in Simferopol, Crimean oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. After a career as a physician assigned to the Soviet space program, he joined the Russian cosmonaut corps. He has flown two long duration spaceflights on the International Space Station logging just short of a year in space. Kotov is currently assigned to the Soyuz TMA-10M/Expedition 37/Expedition 38 long duration spaceflight, which launched on September 25, 2013.

Personal
Kotov is married to Svetlana Nikolayevna Kotova (previously, Bunyakina). They have two children, Valeria Olegovna Kotova (daughter), born in 1994 and Dmitry Olegovich Kotov (son), born in 2002. Kotov's parents, Valeri Efimovich and Elena Ivanovna Kotov, reside in Moscow. He enjoys diving, computers, and photography.

Education
Kotov finished high school in Moscow in 1982 and entered the Kirov Military Medical Academy, from which he graduated in 1988.

Awards
Kotov was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation medal, The Combat Heroism Russian Federation Armed Forces Medal of I and II degrees and the Service Medal of I, II and III degrees.

Experience
After graduation from the Academy in 1988, Kotov served at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, where he held the positions of Deputy lead test-doctor and Lead test doctor. He dealt with problems of altitude physiology and space flight effects on a human body. He gained experience in practical training and medical support of spacewalks on Mir, and was a crew surgeon and instructor for biomedical training and science program training. He is a certified scuba diver.

Roscosmos career
In 1996 Kotov was selected as a cosmonaut candidate by the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC). From June 1996 to March 1998, he completed a course of basic training for spaceflight. In March 1998, he received a test-cosmonaut qualification. Since July 1998, he has been a cosmonaut-researcher and test-cosmonaut of the Cosmonaut Office. From May–August 1998, he trained for a flight on the Soyuz and the Mir station as a backup crewmember to the Mir-26 mission.

Since October 1998, he participated in advanced training for ISS flights. He served as a flight engineer and Soyuz commander on the ISS-6 and ISS-13 backup crews.

From February–October 1999, Kotov served as a Representative of GCTC at the Johnson Space Center. During 2001–2002 he worked as a CAPCOM for Expedition-3 and 4 in mission control center, Moscow and Moscow Support Group in the Mission Control Center at Houston. In 2004 he became Chief of the CAPCOM Branch in the Cosmonaut Office.

Expedition 15
He was a member (Flight Engineer) of the ISS Expedition 15, that launched on April 7, 2007 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, aboard Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft, together with Fyodor Yurchikhin and space tourist Charles Simonyi.

On October 21, Kotov returned to Earth inside the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule after spending 196 days and 17 hours in space. The TMA-10 spacecraft undocked from the ISS at 07:14 UTC on October 21, and deorbit occurred at 09:47. During atmospheric re-entry, the spacecraft transitioned to a ballistic reentry, resulting in it landing west of Arkalyk, approximately 340 km northwest of the intended Kazakhstan landing site.

Expedition 22/23
On his most recent trip to space, Kotov commanded Soyuz TMA-17 and was assigned to Expedition 22 as a Flight Engineer and Expedition 23 as the Commander aboard the International Space Station.

On May 1, 2010 Kotov manually flew the final 1 km of the incoming Progress M-05M spacecraft to the ISS after it failed to return to the proper docking orientation following a series of thruster firings. Kotov using the station's Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous Unit (TORU) system took control and guided the spacecraft to successfully dock with the ISS. Later Russian Mission Control announced that Kotov's Progress M-05M rendezvous work may have set a new record.

Kotov returned to Earth on June 2, 2010 aboard the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft. The Soyuz capsule touched down at about 3:25 UTC on the central steppes of Kazakhstan.

Expedition 37/38
Kotov launched on Soyuz TMA-10M on 25 September 2013, joining Expedition 37. He performed a spacewalk during 9 November 2013, and will be returning to Earth on 12 March 2014.

Spacewalks
At 19:05 GMT on 30 May 2007, accompanied by Fyodor Yurchikhin, Kotov began his first spacewalk, lasting 5 hours and 25 minutes, during which they installed protective panels to shield the ISS from space debris.

On June 6, 2007, Kotov performed his second spacewalk from the Pirs docking compartment airlock. Along with Yurchikhin, Kotov installed a section of Ethernet cable on the Zarya module, installed additional Service Module Debris Protection (SMDP) panels on Zvezda, and deployed a Russian scientific experiment. The two cosmonauts returned to the ISS at 4:00 p.m. EDT to wound up the 5 hours, 37 minutes spacewalk.

On January 14, 2010, Kotov again ventured outside of the ISS with fellow Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev to begin his third spacewalk. The spacewalking duo connected cables between the Poisk and Zvezda modules, installed docking targets and Kurs aerials and attached additional handrails to exit hatches. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 44 minutes.

On 9 November 2013, Kotov did his fourth spacewalk outside of the ISS with Sergey Ryazansky. They took the Olympic torch for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to the outside of ISS. They also continued work on an extravehicular activity workstation and biaxial pointing platform by removing launch brackets and bolts, as well as retrieving an experimental package. The planned installation of a foot restraint on the mounting seat of the workstation was deferred to a future spacewalk after the spacewalkers noticed some issues with its alignment. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours 50 minutes.