Rukavishnikov, Nikolay Nikolayevich

▪ 2003

      Russian cosmonaut (b. Sept. 18, 1932, Tomsk, Siberia, U.S.S.R.—d. Oct. 19, 2002, Moscow, Russia), on his third trip into space, became the first cosmonaut to land a spacecraft manually. Rukavishnikov trained as an engineer at the Moscow Physical Engineering Institute and joined the Soviet space program in 1967. He was test engineer on the Soyuz 10 spacecraft (April 23–25, 1971), which had to return to Earth ahead of schedule after a docking hatch failed on the Salyut 1 space station, and flight engineer on Soyuz 16 during its successful U.S.-Soviet joint mission (Dec. 2–8, 1974). On his final mission (April 10–12, 1979), Rukavishnikov was commander of Soyuz 33. When the main engine suddenly shut down, he powered up a faulty reserve engine and maneuvered the spacecraft into a reentry along a ballistic trajectory and a parachute-assisted soft landing.

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