Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky

Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky (Russian: Вале́рий Фёдорович Быко́вский; born 2 August 1934) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew three manned space mission space flights: Vostok 5, Soyuz 22, and Soyuz 31.

He was also backup for Vostok 3 and Soyuz 37.

Bykovsky set a space endurance record when he spent five days in orbit aboard Vostok 5 in 1963 where his callsign was "Hawk" (Russian: Ястреб).[2]

• Although this flight duration has long since been surpassed by crews of more than one person, to this day it remains the endurance record for a solo spaceflight.

Bykovsky was to have commanded the original Soyuz 2 mission, which was cancelled due to problems with Soyuz 1. After the parachutes failed on that mission, killing Vladimir Komarov, the same problem was found with the Soyuz 2 capsule, which meant if the mission had flown, Bykovsky and his crew would also have been killed.

Many of his later years in the space programme were involved with promoting the Intercosmos programme amongst the world's Socialist nations. He retired in 1988 and then spent three years as the Director of the House of Soviet Science and Culture in Berlin.

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Вале́рий Фёдорович Быко́вский (род. 2 августа 1934 года, Павловский Посад, Московская область, РСФСР, СССР — 27 марта 2019 года) — лётчик-космонавт СССР № 5, дважды Герой Советского Союза, совершивший три полёта в космос общей продолжительностью 20 суток 17 часов 47 минут 21 секунды. На данный момент является космонавтом, совершившим космический полёт ранее всех других живущих космонавтов и астронавтов, и единственным из космонавтов, летавших на КК «Восток» или «Восход», кто совершил 3 космических полёта.