GordonD

This happened to me last night - it refused to recognise when I clicked in the 'Reply' box. I tried updating to the latest version of Chrome but that didn't help so I ended up making my post in Microsoft Edge 🤮 Then when I went back to Chrome it started working again. This morning when I did my update to the Astronauts' Birthdays thread I copied the acknowledgement to the Spacefacts website from the previous day's post, as I always do, but it wouldn't paste as anything other than plain text - I had to add the link via the toolbar.

April 26th Vitali Grishchenko (1942) USSR Selected 1965 Discharged for unknown reasons 1968 Died 4 May 1992, possibly suicide Samantha Christoforetti (1977) Italy Selected 2009 Soyuz TMA-15M/ISS Expedidions 42/43, 23 November 2014 - 11 June 2015 (199d 16h 42m) Still on active flight status Has spent more time in space than any other non-US female Also holds the record for the longest single flight by a non-US/Russian space traveller (male or female) Information from Spacefacts website

This landed in Holyrood Park, outside my window, yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-43881550

April 25th Frank De Winne (1961) Belgium Selected 1998 Soyuz TMA-1/ISS Taxi Flight 4, 30 October - 10 November 2002 (10d 20h 53m) - landed aboard Soyuz TM-34 Soyuz TMA-15/ISS Expeditions 20/21, 27 May - 1 December 2009 (187d 20h 41m) Total flight time 198d 17h 34m Retired August 2012 Soyuz TMA-1 was originally to have carried musician Lance Bass of NSYNC as a fare-paying passenger but financial agreement could not be reached and he was dropped Denis Matveyev (1983) Russia Selected 2010 On active status; no flights yet Information from Spacefacts website

Today is the 51st anniversary of the Soyuz 1 accident, when Vladimir Komarov was killed after his parachute failed to open properly. The mission had problems from the beginning, as one of the solar panels failed to open, and attempts by Komarov to shake it free were unsuccessful. The planned launch of Soyuz 2 was cancelled: the flight plan had called for a docking and transfer of two of its cosmonauts to join Komarov (later achieved on Soyuz 4/5). Komarov re-entered but the main parachute did not open and when the reserve chute was deployed it became entangled. The capsule hit the ground at high speed and exploded. Later analysis of the parachute problem revealed that the same fault was present on Soyuz 2, so had the solar panel opened as it should and the second spacecraft been launched, it is possible that it would have crashed too.

April 24th Valeri Voloshin (1942) USSR Selected 1965 Involved with the Soviet lunar landing programme Retired for medical reasons April 1969; no flights Yvonne Cagle (1959) USA Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16) Retired June 2008; no flights At the 2017 Academy Awards she brought 98-year-old Katherine Johnson (featured in the film Hidden Figures) on stage Information from Spacefacts website and Wikipedia

April 23rd Virgil "Gus" Grissom (1926) USA Selected 1959 (NASA Group 1) Mercury-Redstone 4/Liberty Bell 7, 21 July 1961 (16m) - Suborbital Gemini 3, 23 March 1965 (4h 52m) - First manned Gemini mission Total flight time 5h 8m Killed in spacecraft fire while training for Apollo 1 mission, 27 January 1967 Oleg Moshkin (1964) Russia Selected 1997 Trained as cosmonaut but retired February 2002 after repeatedly failing his exams Information from Spacefacts website

April 22nd John Llewellyn (1933) USA (Born Cardiff; became US Citizen) Selected 1967 (NASA Group 6) Resigned 1968 because he was unable to achieve pilot qualifications Died 2 July 2013 George Simon (1934) USA Selected 1978 Backup for STS-61F/Spacelab 2 Retired 1985; no flights Tamara Zakharova (1952) USSR Selected 1980 Did basic cosmonaut training but not assigned to a mission Retired September 1995; no flights Was married to cosmonaut Yuri Sheffer Daisuke Enomoto (1971) Japan Selection date uncertain (~ 2005) Was to be Spaceflight Participant (fare-paying passenger) on Soyuz TMA-9 but grounded for medical reasons a month before the flight Retired August 2006 Yelena Serova (1976) Russia Selected 2006 Soyuz TMA-14M/ISS Expeditions 41/42, 25 September 2014 - 12 March 2015 (167d 5h 42m) Retired September 2016 Married to cosmonaut Mark Serov In the 53 years of crewed spaceflight (to date of her mission) she is only the FOURTH Soviet/Russian woman to fly Information from Spacefacts website

Vladimir Lyakhov, who flew to three space stations and spent more than 333 days in orbit, has died. http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-042018a-obituary-vladimir-lyakhov-cosmonaut.html

April 21st Aleksander Leveykin (1951) USSR Selected 1978 Soyuz TM-2/Mir Expedition 2, 5 February - 30 July 1987 (174d 3h 25m) Retired March 1994 Sergei Zalyotin (1962) USSR Selected 1990 Soyuz TM-30/Mir Expedition 28, 4 April - 16 June 2000 (72d 19h 41m) Soyuz TMA-1/ISS Taxi Flight 4, 30 October - 10 November 2002 (10d 20h 53m) - landed aboard Soyuz TM-34 Total flight time 83d 16h 34m Originally retired September 2004; returned to flight status 2011 but retired again for medical reasons May 2014 Soyuz TMA-1 was originally to have carried musician Lance Bass of NSYNC as a fare-paying passenger but financial agreement could not be reached and he was dropped Andrei Babkin (1969) Russia Selected 2010 On active status; no flights yet though currently assigned to Soyuz MS-12/ISS Expeditions 59/60, scheduled for March - September 2019 Information from Spacefacts website

April 20th Gregory Olsen (1945) USA Selected 2005 (Spaceflight Participant) Soyuz TMA-7, 1 - 11 October 2005 (9d 21h 15m) - Spacecraft carried ISS Expedition 11; Olsen was fare-paying passenger; landed in TMA-6 with Expedition 10 Retired October 2005 Donald Pettit (1955) USA Selected 1996 (NASA Group 16) STS-113/ISS Expedition 6, 24 November 2002 - 4 May 2003 (161d 1h 14m) - was aboard the ISS at the time of Columbia accident; landed aboard Soyuz TMA-1 STS-126, 15 - 30 November 2008 (15d 20h 29m) - Delivered and retrieved the Leonardo Module; partial crew exchange (Magnus up, Charmitoff down) Soyuz TMA-03M/ISS Expeditions 30/31, 21 December 2011 - 1 July 2012 (192d 18h 58m) Total flight time to date 369d 16h 41m Still on active flight status Sergei Kostenko (1963) Russia Selected 2005 (Spaceflight Participant) Backup to Gregory Olsen on Soyuz TMA-7 (see above) - went through basic cosmonaut training but did not fly Retired October 2005 Information from Spacefacts website

April 19th Viktor Zabolotsky (1946) USSR Selected 1984 Retired 1997; no flights Information from Spacefacts website

April 18th Alfred Atwell (1929) USA Selected 1963 as USAF Military Astronaut Presumably would have trained to fly either the X-20 Dyna-Soar or the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Date of retirement unknown Died 13 April 2013 Information from Spacefacts website

April 17th Sergei Vozovikov (1958) USSR Selected 1990 Drowned 11 July 1993 during survival training in the Black Sea Andrei Borisenko (1964) Russia Selected 2003 Soyuz TMA-21/ISS Expeditions 27/28, 4 April - 16 September 2011 (164d 5h 41m) Soyuz MS-02/ISS Expeditions 49/50, 19 October 2016 - 10 April 2017 (173d 3h 15m) Total flight time to date 337d 8h 56m Still on active flight status Information from Spacefacts website