Valery Polyakov, record-setting cosmonaut, dies

The cosmonaut who still holds the record for the longest single stay in space, Dr. Valery Polyakov, dies at the age of 80. Born in 1942, Polyakov joined the cosmonaut corps in 1972, and then had to wait sixteen years for his first flight, aboard Soyuz TM-6 to the Mir space station in 1988, where he stayed for 240 days. In January 1994 he returned to Mir aboard the Soyuz TM-18 mission, and remained in orbit for a continuous 437 day stay, still the longest continuous spaceflight undertaken by a human being at the time of his death. He returned to Earth in March 1995 and retired from the active cosmonaut rotation a few months later, remaining with the post-Soviet Russian space program as an advisor in the area of the health effects of long-term spaceflight, as well as having a hand in selecting future cosmonauts. He was awarded both the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Hero of the Russian Federation over the course of his career. Though fellow cosmonaut Sergei Adveyev holds the record for the most time in space, that time was accumulated over the course of three missions; as of 2022, Polyakov’s single-flight record remains unbroken.