Aleksey Ovchinin
Aleksey Nikolayevich Ovchinin is a Russian cosmonaut and holds the rank of Podpolkovnik in the Russian Air Force Reserve. He was selected as a cosmonaut in 2006 and made his first spaceflight in 2016 on Soyuz TMA-20M, where he also served as commander.
Early life
He graduated from high school No. 2 in the city of Rybinsk.From August 1988 to September 1990 he was a cadet of Borisoglebsk Higher Military Pilot School and, from September 1990 to August 1992, a student of the Yeisk Higher Military Pilot School where he qualified as a pilot-engineer.
From August 1992 to February 1998 he served as a pilot instructor in the Training Aviation Regiment at Yeisk Higher Military Pilot School. From February 1998 to September 2003 he was a pilot instructor, then commander of the aviation section of Krasnodar Military Aviation Institute in Kotelnikovo. From September 2003, until his enrollment as a cosmonaut, he served as a commander of an aviation unit of the 70th Separate Test Training Aviation Regiment of Special Purpose. He has over 1300 hours flying time in Yak-52 and L-39 aircraft. Ovchinin is qualified as a Pilot Instructor Second Class.
By order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation in 2012 he was dismissed from the Armed Forces into reserve.
Cosmonaut career
On 11 October 2006, at the meeting of the Interdepartmental Commission for the selection of cosmonauts, he was recommended as a cosmonaut candidate at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.From 16 to 22 June 2008 in Sevastopol he participated in descent vehicle training along with Robert Thirsk and Richard Garriott. The training was specifically for landing on water.
On 9 June 2009 he qualified as a "test cosmonaut" and was presented with Cosmonaut Certificate No. 205. On 1 August 2009 he was appointed as a test cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
In October 2009, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, he participated in training in the Mini Research Module. On 26 April 2010 he was certified as a cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center NII FGBU detachment. In September 2013, he took part in the CAVES mission in the Sa Grutta caves on the island of Sardinia. During the mission, five astronauts and cosmonauts from different space agencies worked in a multicultural and multi-ethnic team in extreme conditions underground.
He trained as a part of the backup crew for Soyuz TMA-16M, the launch of which took place on 27 March 2015. In the autumn of 2015, Ovchinin and cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka tasted 160 culinary dishes, designed for astronauts on board the ISS, over an 8-day period. Food was evaluated on a 9-point scale.