Renowned Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the NXT event at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on Saturday. During the meeting, Artemyev presented PM Modi with the flags of India and Russia, which had been aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
He also gifted the Prime Minister a copy of On the Moon, a book by renowned Russian theoretical space scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
“PM Narendra Modi highly praised the level of international cooperation in space exploration and specifically noted the bilateral collaboration between Russia and India on space projects, including Russia’s contribution to India’s Gaganyaan manned space mission,” the Russian Embassy in India said.
Born on December 28, 1970, in Riga (now the Republic of Latvia) to a military engineer, Artemyev spent his childhood in Leninsk, Kazakhstan, where his father was stationed.
In 1998, he joined the S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK Energia) in Korolev, near Moscow, as a test engineer. He participated in preparations for the July 2000 launch of the Zvezda service module for the ISS.
Artemyev made his first spaceflight in March-September 2014 as a flight engineer aboard the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft, serving on the ISS-39/40 expedition alongside Alexander Skvortsov and American astronaut Steven Swanson. He conducted two spacewalks with Skvortsov during the mission.
In March-October 2018, he commanded the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft and served as a flight engineer for the ISS-55/56 expedition.
From March 18 to September 29, 2022, he undertook his third spaceflight as the commander of the Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft and the ISS-67 expedition.
According to Russian news agency Tass, Artemyev has spent a total of 560 days, 18 hours, and 7 minutes in space across three missions and has conducted eight spacewalks.
India-Russia collaboration in space dates back to the launch of the Aryabhata satellite, the historic 1984 mission that sent Rakesh Sharma into space aboard the Russian Soyuz T-11 spacecraft, and Russia’s training of four Indian astronauts for India’s Gaganyaan mission.
IANS
