Gennady Ivanovich Padalka
RSA Cosmonaut
Nationality	Russian
Status	active
Born	(1958-06-21) June 21, 1958 (age 54) Krasnodar, Russia
Other occupation	Pilot
Rank	Colonel
Time in space	Currently in space
Selection	1989 Cosmonaut Group
Total EVAs	8
Total EVA time	27 hours 15 minutes
Missions	Soyuz TM-28, Soyuz TMA-4, Expedition 9, Soyuz TMA-14, Expedition 19/20, Soyuz TMA-04M, Expedition 31
Mission insignia
Awards

Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (Russian: Гeннадий Иванович Падалка) (born June 21, 1958, in Krasnodar, Russia) is a Russian Air Force officer and an RSA cosmonaut. As of June 2010, Gennady ranks sixth for career time in space due to his time on both Mir and the International Space Station.

Personal[link]

Padalka is married to Irina Anatoliyevna Padalka (Ponomareva). They have three daughters: Yuliya, Yekaterina, and Sonya. He enjoys the theater, parachute sport and diving.

Education and Training[link]

Padalka graduated from Eisk Military Aviation College in 1979. After graduation, he served as a pilot and later a senior pilot in the Russian Air Force, eventually attaining the rank of colonel. He has logged 1500 flight hours in six types of aircraft as a First Class Pilot in the Russian Air Force. In addition, he has performed more than 300 parachute jumps as an Instructor of General Parachute Training. Padalka also worked as an engineer-ecologist at the UNESCO International Center of Instruction Systems until 1994.^[1] He is an investigator for the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Project, a US Government funded study investigating strategies for applying diagnostic telemedicine to space.

Awards[link]

Padalka is a recipient of the Hero Star of the Russian Federation and the title of Russian Federation Test-Cosmonaut. He is decorated with Fatherland Service Medal fourth class, Medals of the Russian Federation and also Medal of the International Fund of Cosmonautics support for Service to Cosmonautics. Padalka is a prize winner of the Russian Federation Government in the field of science and technology.

Cosmonaut career[link]

Gennady Palka was selected as a cosmonaut candidate to start training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in 1989. From June 1989 to January 1991, he attended basic space training. In 1991, Padalka was qualified as a test-cosmonaut.

Mir Mission[link]

On August 13, 1998, Gennady launched with Sergei Avdeyev aboard Soyuz TM-28 to become the crew of Mir Expedition 26, whose primary mission was to make repairs to life support systems and prepare the station for deorbit, which was to take place after Expedition 27. On February 8, 1999 at 11:23 GMT Padalka and Avdeyev undocked from Mir's -X port in Soyuz TM-28, and redocked at the +X Kvant port at 11:39 GMT, freeing up the front port for the Soyuz TM-29 docking.^[2] He returned to Earth on board the Soyuz TM-28 capsule on February 28, 1999. The Soyuz TM-28 undocked from the Kvant rear docking port on February 27 at 22:52 GMT and landed in Kazakhstan on February 28 at 02:14 GMT. Padalka accumulated 198 days and 16 hours of space travel during the mission.

ISS Missions[link]

Expedition 9 commander Gennady Padalka inside the Zvezda module of the ISS.

June 1999 through July 2000, Padalka trained for a space flight on a Soyuz-TM transport vehicle as an ISS contingency crew commander. August 2000 to November 2001, he trained for a space flight as the Expedition 4 back-up crew commander.

Expedition 9[link]

In March 2002, Padalka was assigned as commander of the ISS Expedition 9 crew. Expedition 9 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz TMA-4 spacecraft, and docked with the ISS on April 21, 2004. Following a week of joint operations and handover briefings, they replaced the Expedition 8 crew who returned to Earth. In a six-month tour of duty aboard the station Padalka continued ISS science operations, maintained Station systems, and performed four spacewalks. The Expedition 9 mission concluded after undocking and landed back in Kazakhstan on October 23, 2004. In completing this mission, Padalka logged an additional 187 days, 21 minutes and 17 seconds in space, and 15 hours, 45 minutes and 22 seconds of EVA time.

Expedition 19/20[link]

Expedition 20 commander Gennady Padalka inside the Pirs Docking Compartment of the ISS.

Padalka returned to the ISS in 2009 to serve as commander of Expeditions 19 and 20.^[3][4] He commanded the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft which was launched from Baikonur on March 26, 2009 and docked with the ISS two days later. Padalka also commanded the first six-person space station crew (Expedition 20), returning to Earth on October 11, 2009.^[5]

Expedition 31/32[link]

In May 2012 Padalka returned to the ISS for a third time. He is currently a flight engineer as part of Expedition 31 before graduating to command Expedition 32.^[6]

He launched to the ISS aboard Soyuz TMA-04M on May 15, 2012, along with fellow crew members Sergei Revin and Joseph Acaba^[7] and arrived at the space station on May 17 at 4:36 UTC.^[8]

Spacewalks[link]

As of June 2010, Gennady Padalka has participated in eight spacewalks.

On September 15, 1998, Padalka performed the first spacewalk of his career during a stay aboard Mir along with Sergei Avdeyev. After donning spacesuits, the PKhO compartment of the Mir Core Module was depressurized and the spacewalkers entered the dead Spektr module at 20:00 GMT. The crew reconnected some cables for the solar panel steering mechanism and closed the hatch a half hour later. The PKhO was then repressurized after a spacewalk which lasted 30 minutes.

On November 10, 1998, Padalka and Avdeyev again ventured out into space. The two made the EVA from the Kvant-2 airlock on Mir. The starting time of the spacewalk was at 19:24 GMT. The two spacewalking cosmonauts installed a meteoroid detector in for the upcoming Leonid shower, and hand-launched the Sputnik-41 amateur-radio mini-satellite. The space walk concluded at 01:18 GMT on November 11 clocking a total time of 5 hours and 54 minutes.

Padalka's third spacewalk was performed on June 24, 2004 from the ISS's Pirs Docking Compartment. The spacewalk was cut short due to a spacesuit malfunction of his fellow spacewalking partner, NASA astronaut Michael Fincke.^[9] After Fincke egressed, within minutes flight controllers noticed a decrease in pressure in his primary oxygen tank. Although the spacewalk was planned for six hours, as a result of the problems it only lasted 14 minutes.

On June 30, 2004, Padalka performed his fourth spacewalk along with astronaut Michael Fincke. The duo successfully and repaired a faulty circuit breaker on the space station an hour ahead of the schedule.^[10] During their repair job, the two spacewalkers replaced a failed device called a remote power control module (RPCM) that had cut off power to its gyroscope. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 40 minutes.

Padalka with his Orlan spacesuit in the Pirs Docking Compartment.

On August 3, 2004 Gennady Padalka and Mike Fincke again left the space station to install communications gear and replace space exposure experiments on the outside of the Zvezda Service Module.^[11] The spacewalk was conducted from the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock and commenced when Padalka and Fincke opened the outer hatch of the airlock at 6:58 GMT. During the spacewalk the two spacewalkers removed six obsolete laser reflectors used for docking and replaced four of them with more newer versions. The crew also installed two antennas to allow the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to communicate with the space station and removed a cable from a faulty television camera. The 4 hour 20 minute excursion out of the ISS marked Padalka's fifth career spacewalk.

Padalka completed his sixth career spacewalk on September 3, 2004 when he and Mike Fincke ventured out into space. The spacecraft took place outside of the Zvezda module. Padalka and Fincke began the spacewalk at 16:43 GMT, after emerging from the Pirs airlock.^[12] On the Zarya module, the two spacwalkers replaced a pump control panel that measures the module's coolant levels. They also installed three communications antennas at its aft end of the Zvezda module. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 21 minutes.

Padalka completed his seventh career spacewalk on June 5, 2009.^[13] He and NASA astronaut Michael Barratt egressed outside the ISS beginning at 7:52 UTC to install docking system antennas and cabling to accommodate the Mini Research Module 2 (MRM-2). The spacewalk began at an hour behind schedule because of higher than expected carbon-dioxide levels in the spacesuits. The spacewalk ended when the two crew members returned to the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock at 12:46 GMT. The spacewalk lasted 4 hours and 54 minutes.

On June 10, 2009 Gennady Padalka and Michael Barratt entered the transfer compartment in the Zvezda module.^[14] The "internal spacewalk" began 10 minutes behind schedule because of initial problems with pressure inside the airlock, which did not fall as fast as expected. While they were not in open space outside the ISS, Padalka and Barratt had to wear space suits in the depressurized compartment. During the 12 minute spacewalk the two crew members moved a docking mechanism to accommodate the MRM-2. The event marked the eight career spacewalk for Padalka.

Notes[link]

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

References[link]

• NASA bio
• Spacefacts biography of Gennady Padalka