Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov

Biography

Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov (Russian: Оле́г Григо́рьевич Мака́ров) (6 January 1933 – 28 May 2003) was a Soviet cosmonaut. He was originally part of the Soviet lunar program and was training with Aleksei Leonov for the first manned circumlunar flight. After the success of Apollo 8, however, the flight was cancelled. His first spaceflight was Soyuz 12 in 1973, a test flight to check the changes made to the Soyuz spacecraft after the Soyuz 11 disaster. His second flight was the abortive Soyuz 18a that made an emergency landing in the Altay Mountains, 21 minutes after launch. With his third launch on Soyuz 27 he flew to space station Salyut 6 and landed five days later with the Soyuz 26 spacecraft. His last mission was Soyuz T-3, during which several repairs on Salyut 6 were done. He also served on the backup crews for Soyuz 17 and Soyuz T-2. Altogether he spent 20 days, 17 hours, and 44 minutes in space.