Nikolai Tikhonov (cosmonaut)

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Nikolay Tikhonov
Born (1982-05-23) May 23, 1982 (age 41)
StatusRetired (Jul 2020)
NationalityRussian
Space career
RSA Cosmonaut
Time in space
None
Selection2006 RSA Group

Nikolay Vladimirovich Tikhonov (Russian Cyrillic: Николай Владимирович Тихонов; born May 23, 1982) is a retired Russian cosmonaut, selected in 2006. He was scheduled to make his first space flight in 2020, onboard Soyuz MS-16, but was removed for medical reasons.

Cosmonaut career[edit]

After working as an engineer for RKKE, he was selected for cosmonaut training in 2006.

In 2013, Tikhonov served as cavenaut into the ESA CAVES[1] training in Sardinia, alongside Soichi Noguchi, Andreas Mogensen, David Saint-Jacques, Andrew Feustel and Michael Fincke.

He was selected as a backup flight engineer for Soyuz MS-02. He was made a prime crew member of Soyuz MS-04 but, due to Russian budget cuts, the crews were changed and Tikhonov was then slated to make his first spaceflight on the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft. He was again removed from the manifest due to delays in launching the Russian Nauka module.[2][3] He was scheduled to fly into space as commander of the Soyuz MS-15 mission, although he was removed for a third time following the aborted launch of Soyuz MS-10, and the subsequent crew changes that followed. He was scheduled to finally make his first flight onboard Soyuz MS-16 in 2020, but ended up replaced due to medical reasons.[4]

Tikhonov (right) as part of the Soyuz MS-02 backup crew.

In July 2020 it was reported he had left the cosmonaut corps "in connection with new data on his state of health".[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Sauro, Francesco; De Waele, Jo; Payler, Samuel J.; Vattano, Marco; Sauro, Francesco Maria; Turchi, Leonardo; Bessone, Loredana (2021-07-01). "Speleology as an analogue to space exploration: The ESA CAVES training programme". Acta Astronautica. 184: 150–166. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.04.003. hdl:11585/819077. ISSN 0094-5765. S2CID 234819922.
  2. ^ Ben Evans (May 30, 2018). "No U.S. Crew Will Command The International Space Station in 2019". AmericaSpace. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  3. ^ Ben Evans (October 30, 2016). "As Soyuz MS-01 Lands, International Partners Look Ahead to Reduced Crewing in 2017". AmericaSpace. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
  4. ^ Pavlushchenko, Katya [@katlinegrey] (February 19, 2020). "Breaking news! #Roscosmos decided to replace the crew members of #SoyuzMS16 with the backup crew due to medical indications. https://rbc.ru/technology_and..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  5. ^ "Cosmonaut Nikolai Tikhonov dropped out of the cosmonaut corps". gctc.ru. Jul 31, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.