Yuri Petrovich Artyukhin (
cyrillic Юрий Петрович Артюхин) was born
July 22, 1930 in
Pershitino,
Russia. He graduated from the
Air Force Institute and joined the
Soviet Air Force achieving the rank of
Colonel. He was selected as a cosmonaut in
1963. He was an
engineer, specialising in
military communications systems.
He was one of many cosmonauts who were selected for the Soviet lunar landing program.
His first and only flight was Soyuz 14 launched July 3, 1974 carrying Pavel Popovich and Artyukhin to Salyut 3 for a 15 day mission. There they operated the reconnaissance equipment on board and conducted medical experiments on themselves investigating the effects of long term spaceflight.
He was then moved to the TKS program. TKS was a military manned spacecraft that would ferry cosmonauts and equipment to the Almaz space stations. He was on the prime crew for the second TKS mission. This was to have docked with the fourth Almaz space station. It was cancelled along with the cancellation of the rest of the Almaz project. The spacecraft eventually flew unmanned as Cosmos 1443, which docked with Salyut 7. The TKS program lives on as modules that have made up Mir and the ISS.
In all he spent 15 days, 17 hours and 30 minutes in space.
After Soyuz 14 mission, he worked in the cosmonaut training centre, then the Research and Development at NPO Molniya. He was also involved in the development of the Russian shuttle Buran.
Artyuhkin died August 8, 1998 at the age of 68 after a long illness.
He was awarded the highest honour in the USSR, the Hero of the Soviet Union (by Decree of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on July, 20, 1974) and the Order of Lenin. He is an honourary citizen of Kaluga, Klin (Russia), Leninsk, Dzhezkazgan (Kazakhstan), Daugavpils (Latvia), Varna (Bulgaria).
- http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/english/artyukhin_yuri.htm
- http://www.astronautix.com/astros/artukhin.htm