Hero of Soviet union, Hero of the Russian Federation USSR pilot and cosmonaut Valery Polyakov celebrated his Birthday yesterday, on April 27.

Valery Polyakov set up the world’s record having performed the longest space flight in the history of mankind lasting for 437 days.

His first flight Valery Vladimorovych started as Soyuz TM-6 research cosmonaut going to Mir space station together with Valery Lyakhov (USSR) and Abdul Ahad Momand(Afganistan) on August 29, 1988. He worked onboard Mir space station with such cosmonauts as V. Titov, M. Manarov, A. Volkov, S. Krikalyov and Jean-Loup Chretien (France). In the framework of flight program Valery Polyakov conducted a series of bio-medical experiments, studying long-duration flight factors impact on cosmonauts’ health and workability. During the flight he applied new methods of medical backup for long-duration flight missions.  On April 27, 1989, Alexander Volkov, Vladimir Polyakov and Sergey Krikalyov successfully landed onboard Soyuz TM-7. Polyakov’s first flight lasted for 240 days, for this flight he was awarded Hero of Soviet Union with Golden Star medal.

His second flight was taking part from January 8, 1994 to March 22, 1995. During the flight Valery Vladimirovych worked with V. Tsibliyev, A. Serebrov, Y. Malenchenko, T. Musabayev, A. Viktorenko and E. Kondakova. Polyakov spent 437 days onboard Mir space station setting up  absolute work-in-space duration record. For this flight on April 10, 1995, Valery Vladimirovych was awarded Hero of Russian Federation with Golden Star medal .

Valery Vladimirovych is a Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor, he is an author of more than 50 scientific works dedicated to space biology and medicine issues.