Maksim Surayev

Maksim Viktorovich Surayev (Максим Викторович Сураев, born May 24, 1972) is a Russian cosmonaut.

Personal
Surayev was born in Chelyabinsk. During his childhood, Suraev lived in several places due to his father's military commitments. First he moved from his birthplace, Chelyabinsk in the Urals, to Siberia. When his father entered the military academy, the Suraev family moved again to the environs of Moscow. While his father served several postings, Suraev again moved from one town to another around Moscow.

Surayev is married to Suraeva (née Khorokhordina) Anna Alexandrovna. They have two daughters, Arina and Ksenia. His recreational interests include sports and reading. He is a qualified diver and paraborne instructor.

Education
Surayev graduated with honors from the Kacha Air Force Pilot School as pilot-engineer in 1994; graduated with honors from the Zhukovski Air Force Academy in 1997 as pilot-engineer-researcher. In 2007, he received a law degree from the Russian Academy of Civil Service.

Awards
Maksim Surayev is a recipient of the Gold Star Medal of Hero of Russia. He received the medal from the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on December 30, 2010.

Experience
Surayev is qualified to fly L-39 and Su-27 aircraft, and has logged around 700 hours of flight time. Surayev is a Class 3 Air Force pilot, a qualified diver and paraborne instructor.

Cosmonaut career
From December 1997 to November 1999, Surayev completed basic space training. In November 1999 he was qualified as a test-cosmonaut. From January 2000 he was in ISS advanced training. From March 2006 until April 2008 Surayev was assigned as a backup ISS Expedition 17 crewmember. From April 2008 until March 2009 he was a member of the ISS Expedition 19 backup crew.



Expedition 21/22
Surayev served as a Flight Engineer on the International Space Station as a member of the Expedition 22 crew. He also served in the same capacity during Expedition 21 having traveled to the station aboard Soyuz TMA-16 on September 30, 2009 from the Baikonour cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He was the commander of the Soyuz spacecraft. Surayev with Jeffrey Williams landed their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft on the steppes of Kazakhstan on March 18, 2010, wrapping up a 167 day stay aboard the International Space Station.

Surayev kept a blog while in space.

Spacewalks
On January 14, 2010, Surayev went outside of the ISS into space with fellow Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov to begin his first spacewalk. The spacewalk started at 10:05 GMT when Surayev and Kotov donned in new Russian Orlan-MK computerised spacesuits floated out of the Pirs Docking compartment airlock. The spacewalking duo connected cables between the Poisk and Zvezda modules, installed docking targets and Kurs aerials and attached additional handrails to exit hatches. They also retrieved a Russian biological experiment from the outside hull of the ISS and tossed out two big wads of space trash that contained unneeded insulation covers. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 44 minutes.