Aleksandr Samokutyayev

Early life and education Samokutyaev was born on March 13, 1970 in Penza. In 1987–1988, Samokutyaev studied at Penza Polytechnical Institute. He then moved to Chernigov where he graduated from the Chernigov Higher Military Pilot School with a degree in pilot engineering in 1992. In 2000, Samokutyaev graduated from the Gagarin Air Force Academy with a degree in military and administrative management.

Air Force career Samokutyaev flew as a pilot, as a senior pilot, and as a deputy commander of an air squadron in the Russian Air Force. The launch of Soyuz TMA-21 was dedicated as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first space mission by Yuri Gagarin. During the mission, Samokutyaev carried with him a small stuffed dog given to him by his daughter. During a NASA TV broadcast, the toy was seen floating, indicating the weightlessness of space.

At 23:09 UTC on 6 April, after two days of solo flight, the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft docked at the ISS. Samokutyaev performed his first spacewalk on 3 August 2011 with Sergey Volkov, where he relocated equipment, installed a materials science experiment, and hand-deployed a micro-satellite outside the ISS. Later that day, at 3:59 UTC, Soyuz TMA-21 capsule, carrying Samokutyaev, Borisenko, and Garan, touched down 93 miles southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 41/42 Samokutyaev returned to space aboard Soyuz TMA-14M, as part of the Expedition 41/42 long-duration ISS crew. The mission launched on 25 September 2014 and docked at the ISS on 26 September, mere six hours after lift-off. He performed his second space walk on 22 October 2014 with Maksim Surayev to jettison unneeded equipment and conduct a photographic survey of the station exterior. Once the antenna problems were resolved by the ground control, the two cosmonauts deployed a small satellite named Radioskaf-V which had originally been planned for deployment at the beginning of the spacewalk. The satellite contained an amateur radio transmitter and a student experiment. The primary task of the spacewalk was relocating the Strela 1 boom from the Pirs module to the Poisk module, but it had to be called off due to time constraints. They did, however, successfully install a science experiment – BIORISK on a handrail outside the Pirs module. The BIORISK experiment studied the effects of microbes on spacecraft structures and of solar activity on microbial growth. Finally, Samokutyaev and Volkov took some photos holding old photographs of the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, spacecraft designer Sergei Korolyov, and Soviet astronautic theory pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, with Earth in the background, before entering the Pirs module, thereby completing the Russian EVA-28.

Russian EVA #40 Samokutyaev and cosmonaut Maksim Surayev performed a spacewalk outside the space station on 22 October 2014. Although planned as a six-hour spacewalk, the cosmonauts were able to complete all scheduled tasks in just 3 hours and 38 minutes. During the extravehicular activity, Samokutyaev and Surayev dismantled the RK 21-8 radiometria science payload and the 2ASF1-1 and 2ASF1-2 KURS antennas from the Poisk module. The RK-21-8 science payload had been installed during the Russian EVA-28 in early 2011, and consisted of an antenna system with a calibrator, a microwave radiometer receiver system, and a command information unit. It was used for a series of seismic forecasts and earthquake studies. The RK-21-8 payload was jettisoned by Surayev 33 minutes into the EVA, on a safe departure trajectory from the ISS. Samokutyaev jettisoned the antennas – the first one at 15:43 UTC, followed by the second one five minutes later. The cosmonauts also released a protective cover from the EXPOSE-R payload which had been developed by the European Space Agency to conduct astrobiology studies by exposing samples and experiments to the space environment. After completing all operations at the Poisk module, the cosmonauts photographed the orbital station's surface so specialists could later assess its condition. Russian EVA-40 was the 184th spacewalk in support of the ISS assembly.

Samokutyaev was dismissed from his role as an instructor and deputy commander of the cosmonaut corps due to medical concerns in 2017.

Personal life and death Samokutyaev was married to Oksana Nikolaevna; they had one daughter.