Yuri Shargin

Yuri Georgiyevich Shargin is a retired cosmonaut of the Russian Space Forces.

Biography He was born March 20, 1960, in Engels, Saratov Oblast, Russian SFSR. His father was Jewish. He is divorced and has two children.

Shargin graduated in 1982 from the Military Engineering Academy for Aeronautics and Astronautics located in Leningrad.

He was selected in 2004, to be the flight engineer on the Soyuz TMA-5 mission to the International Space Station. Soyuz TMA-5 was successfully launched on October 14, 2004.

Shargin was the first Russian Space Forces cosmonaut to launch into space. Due to his late addition to the crew and lack of background information or information about his activities in space, some questioned the motives of his flight. However, chief flight director Vladimir Solovyov, assured, “We, on the ISS, are not involved in military matters.”

He retired from the cosmonaut corps in August 2008