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Thirty years ago, in late December, Sergei Krikalev discovered along with millions of his compatriots that the state in which he was born no longer existed. Unlike everyone else, the news of the dissolution of the Soviet Union (USSR) reached him when he was very far from Earth, in orbit at the MIR space station, which was considered one of the most important orbital posts of the time built by the Soviet government.
It was December 26, 1991, and Krikalev was inadvertently ready to become “the last Soviet citizen,” as would later be defined in numerous articles and stories about his adventure.
He began his career as an astronaut in the second half of the 1980s, when the so-called “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed to be over. The Soviets had excelled immediately after World War II, sending the satellite and the first man into orbit, but then they gradually lost ground to the Americans, with the latter’s missions to the moon thanks to the Apollo program.
MIR (meaning “world” and “peace” in Russian) was probably the most important achievement of Soviet space technology. Its construction in orbit had begun in 1986 and took about 10 years to complete. The idea was to have an orbital base from which to conduct experiments and test the effects of cosmonaut life in space, even during long missions.
The logic was not much different from what is being pursued today for the International Space Station (ISS), a collaboration between multiple space agencies and that can be considered in many respects as the successor to MIR.
Krikalev first arrived at MIR in 1988 and stayed there for about 5 months, the maximum time allowed for training. Three years later, on May 19, 1991, he embarked on a new mission that would prove to be the longest and most memorable of his life.
Less than a month after his arrival in orbit, Krikalev learned of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In addition to the first presidential election in Russia, a referendum on renaming St. Petersburg was held in his hometown of Leningrad. The decision was approved and in September the city got its old name.
This change was just one of the signs warning of the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. Various countries, once part of the USSR, had left or were moving towards independence, and in August the failed coup, considered one of the key points in the collapse of the Soviet Union, took place.
Seeing the earth from 400 kilometers away, Krikalev had not had the opportunity to notice such drastic changes. Russia and other territories were the same as before. Moreover, the borders are not visible from space, but as the days passed, in the autumn season, it began to be realized that the problems of the economic and political crisis in the world would also affect the MIR crews.
In that turbulent period for the country, the space station had to be run by someone and Krikalev was asked to extend his stay there, as he was the only one of the four people there who had the opportunity to be properly trained for long-term orbital missions. great.
Totkar Aubakirov, a Russian cosmonaut and the first Austrian astronaut, Franz Viehbock, left MIR and returned to Earth in early October 1991, leaving Krikalev and his colleague Alexander Volkov, who had arrived at it, there. space station a little later.
After the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, on December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union finally disintegrated, and on January 1, 1992, Russia formalized its independence, marking the true end of the USSR and all its major programs. , together with the space program, of which Krikalev and Volkov were part.
The two cosmonauts were no longer Soviet, but they did not yet know how and when their space mission would end. Days passed and Krikalev had now spent about eight months in orbit, three months longer than his mission had been planned. Another problem was that the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the gateway to Soviet space, was in Kazakhstan, which had gained its independence as a state.
Krikalev and Volkov could have returned to Earth using a transport capsule placed in the MIR, but this would lead to the abandonment of the station and leaving it without a driver, seriously endangering the existence of the station. But it took months for Russia to find the resources to bring them home.
At the end of March 1992, after 311 days in orbit, Krikalev finally managed to return to Earth along with Volkov, leaving the place to a new crew. Russia honored him with the high medal of honor “Hero of the Russian Federation” with the motivation of not abandoning the MIR station. Krikalev later returned to space for other missions and was also the first Russian to enter the International Space Station.
He still works for the Russian space program and was among the main supporters of the idea to save MIR, at the time when the first proposals to abandon it were circulated because it was old and had a high cost to maintain.
The station was abandoned and destroyed in the atmosphere. Krikalev was his last Soviet invader and the first Russian to abandon him.
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