Volkov, the only crew member who had been to space before, had one previous spaceflight. It was a two-month mission in 1985 to the space station
Salyut 7, launched by the spacecraft
Soyuz T-14. This expedition,
Salyut 7 EO-4, was intended to be 6 months long, but the Commander
Vladimir Vasyutin became ill, and the mission was shortened, forcing the cosmonauts to leave the station unmanned. Volkov became father of the first ever second-generation cosmonaut, when his son
Sergey Volkov became Commander of the
International Space Station's
Expedition 17 in 2008. This was Krikalev's first spaceflight, and he went on to have a further five missions to space. As of 2010 he holds the record for the
longest cumulative time spent in space, at 803 days. His most recent spaceflight was in 2005, as Commander of the International Space Station's
Expedition 11. Polyakov, a
physician, arrived at the station part way through the previous expedition,
Mir EO-3. He had never been in space before, but would later have one more spaceflight, which would span three Mir expeditions:
EO-15,
EO-16, and
EO-17. His second spaceflight, launched on
Soyuz TM-18 in January 1994, would last 437 days, and as of 2010, still holds the record for the
longest ever spaceflight.
Backup Crew •
Aleksandr Viktorenko (Commander) •
Aleksandr Serebrov (Flight Engineer) •
German Arzamazov (Research Doctor) ==Mission highlights==