Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya (russian: Надежда Васильевна Кужельная, born 6 November 1962) is a former Russian

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

. She had been due to fly on

Soyuz TM-32 Soyuz TM-32 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight which was launched on April 28, 2001, and docked with the International Space Station two days later. It launched the crew of the visiting mission ISS EP-1, which included the first paying space touri ...

, but was cut in order to accommodate American

space tourist Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

Dennis Tito Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. In mid-2001, he became the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space, when he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visitin ...

. She later retired from the service in 2004, to become a

commercial pilot A commercial pilot licence (CPL) is a type of pilot licence that permits the holder to act as a pilot of an aircraft and be paid for their work. Different licenses are issued for the major aircraft categories: airplanes, airships, balloons, glid ...

with Russian carrier Aeroflot.

Early life

Nadezhda Vasilievna Kuzhelnaya was born on 6 November 1962 in Alexeyevskoye, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. As a child, she enjoyed science fiction films and books on space. As a hobby, she joined a

flying club A flying club or aero club is a not-for-profit, member-run organization that provides its members with affordable access to aircraft. Many clubs also provide flight training, flight planning facilities, pilot supplies and associated services, as ...

in 1981. She aspired to become an architect, and graduated from the Dnepropetrovsk Engineering and Building Institute in 1984. However, inspired by Svetlana Savitskaya's flight into space on the Soyuz T-7 mission, she instead enrolled in the

Moscow Aviation Institute Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University) (MAI; russian: Московский авиационный институт, МАИ) is one of the major engineering institutes in Moscow, Russia. Since its inception MAI has been spearhe ...

. Upon graduation in 1988, she began working as an engineer for

RKK Energia PAO S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация «Энергия» им. С. П. Королёва, Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya "Energiya" im. S. P. Korolyov ...

, designing equipment for spaceflights.

Career

Kuzhelnaya applied 1994 to become a

and was accepted onto the two-year training programme, and studied at the

Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center The Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC; Russian: Центр подготовки космонавтов имени Ю. А. Гагарина) is a Russian training facility responsible for trai ...

. She was one of two civilians recruited, alongside

Mikhail Tyurin Mikhail Vladislavovich Tyurin (russian: Михаил Владиславович Тюрин; born March 2, 1960) is a former Russian cosmonaut who flew several missions to the International Space Station and completed four spacewalks during his ca ...

, who had also worked for RKK Energia. During the training, Kuzhelnaya married her flight instructor, Vladimir Morozov. When the couple had a daughter, Kuzhelnaya postponed her training for a while but returned quickly while Morozov looked after their child. Kuzhelnaya trained as a flight engineer, whose role would be to fly the

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз ( Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...

spacecraft to dock with the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

. She was assigned to

, due to fly to the space station in 2001. However, she was cut in order to accommodate American

. Kuzhelnaya was subsequently allocated as a backup to French astronaut

Claudie Haigneré Claudie (André-Deshays) Haigneré (born 13 May 1957) is a French doctor, politician and former astronaut with the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (1985–1999) and the European Space Agency (1999–2002). Background and training Born in ...

for a mission later that year. Between 1999 and 2004, Kuzhelnaya was the sole female cosmonaut. She was a backup once again in 2001, for Italian astronaut

Roberto Vittori Brigadier Roberto Vittori, OMRI (born 15 October 1964, in Viterbo) is an Italian Air Force officer and an ESA astronaut. After graduating from the Italian Accademia Aeronautica in 1989, Vittori flew in the Italian Air Force. He then trained as a ...

during the

Soyuz TM-34 Soyuz TM-34 was the fourth Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Soyuz TM-34 was launched by a Soyuz-U launch vehicle. Crew Docking with ISS *Docked to ISS: April 27, 2002, 07:55 UTC (to nadir port of Zarya) *Undocked fr ...

mission. In May 2004, after an announcement that female cosmonauts would not be flying for several years, she retired from the service to become a

for Russian carrier Aeroflot. As of 2007, Kuzhelnaya was one of two female pilots who flew the

Tupolev Tu-134 The Tupolev Tu-134 (NATO reporting name: Crusty) is a twin-engined, narrow-body jet airliner built in the Soviet Union for short and medium-haul routes from 1966 to 1989. The original version featured a glazed-nose design and, like certain ot ...

, compared to around a thousand male pilots, then

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the famil ...

and

Airbus A330 The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner in the mid-1970s. Then the company began development on the A330 twinjet in parallel with the A340 ...

Notes

References

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External links

Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya
s profile at www.astronaut.ru {{DEFAULTSORT:Kuzhelnaya, Nadezhda Living people Women astronauts 21st-century women engineers 1962 births 21st-century Russian women 21st-century Russian engineers Russian women engineers