PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Brown hair; brown eyes; 5 feet 10 inches; 177 pounds.
EDUCATION: Graduated from secondary school in 1965, from the Higher Air Force College in Chernigov in the Ukraine in 1970, and the Yuri Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1987.
MARITAL STATUS: Married to the former Alexandra Kozlova of Ivanovo Region, Russia. Her parents, Ruric and Alevtina Kozlov, reside in Ivanovo Region.
CHILDREN: Daughter, Marina, May 17, 1975, and son, Yuri, January 16, 1985.
RECREATIONAL INTERESTS: Enjoys tennis, hunting, and spending time with his family.
SPECIAL HONORS: Awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and recipient of the Order of Lenin (1983, 1988). In 1988, the French awarded him the title of Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur, and in 1990 he and Manarov were awarded the U.S. Harmon Prize --the first Soviet citizens to win the award -- in recognition of their world endurance record.
EXPERIENCE: In 1966, Vladimir Titov enrolled at the Higher Air Force College in Chernigov in the Ukraine, graduating in 1970. Until 1974, he served at the College as a pilot-instructor and was responsible for the graduation of twelve student pilots. He later served as a flight commander with the air regiment where the cosmonauts carry out flying practice. He has flown 10 different types of aircraft, has logged more than 1,400 hours flying time, and holds the qualifications of Military Pilot, 1st Class, and Test Pilot, 3rd Class.
Vladimir Titov was selected to join the cosmonaut team in 1976, and in September1981 was paired with Gennady Strekalov. The two men served as the back-up crewfor Soyuz T-5 in 1982 and Soyuz T-9 in 1983. A three-flight veteran, Titov served as commander on Soyuz T-8 and Soyuz T-10 in 1983, and Soyuz TM-4 in 1987. He has logged a total of 13 hours 47 minutes of EVA, and has spent a total of 367 days, 23 hours, 2 minutes, and 18 seconds in space (including theSoyuz T-10 launch abort).
Titov made his first space flight on April 20, 1983, as commander of Soyuz T-8. He and Strekalov had been specifically trained to repair the faulty Salyut7 solar array. He was supposed to dock with Salyut 7, but once in orbit the Soyuz rendezvous radar antenna failed to deploy properly. Several attitude control maneuvers at high rates were made but failed to swing the boom out. (The postflight inquiry later discovered that the whole of the antenna had been torn off when the Soyuz payload shroud separated.) With FCC permission, the crew attempted a rendezvous using only an optical sight and ground radar inputs for guidance. During the final approach, which was made in darkness, Titov believed that the closing speed was too great. He therefore attempted a braking maneuver, but felt that the two spacecraft were still closing too fast. He aborted the rendezvous to avoid a crash, and no further attempts were made before the three men returned to Earth after a flight lasting just 2 days, 17minutes, and 48 seconds.
Titov and Strekalov were then scheduled for launch on board what should have been Soyuz T-10 on September 27, 1983. However, a valve in the propellant line failed to close at T-90 seconds, causing a large fire to start at the base of the launch vehicle only one minute before launch. The fire quickly engulfed the rocket, and the automatic abort sequence failed as the wires involved burned through. Two launch controllers manually aborted the mission by sending radio commands from the launch block house. This was accomplished 12 seconds after the fire began. The Soyuz descent module was pulled clear by the launch escape system, and after being subjected to 15-17 G' s, the crew landed safely some 2.5 miles (4 km) from the launch vehicle, which apparently exploded seconds after the Soyuz separated. The two men were given a medical check-up, but had sustained no injuries during their brief flight which lasted 5 minutes and 30 seconds.
Titov was next assigned to command Soyuz TM-2. He and his flight engineer, Alexander Serebrov, were scheduled for a long-duration flight on board Mir 1. Six-days prior to launch, due to doubts about Serebrov's health, they were replaced by the back-up crew. Titov continued training for a long-duration mission, and in April 1987 was paired with Musa Manarov. Later that year, he graduated from the Yuri Gagarin Air Force Academy while continuing his work at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
His next assignment came as the commander of Soyuz TM-4, which launched on December 21, 1987. Together with Musa Manarov and Anatoli Levchenko, he linked up with the orbiting Mir 1 space station and her crew. After a short period of joint work, Romanenko, Alexandrov, and Levchenko returned to Earth handing over the space station to Titov and Manarov. The two men settled down to a long program of scientific experiments and observations, and played host to the visiting Soyuz TM-5 and TM-6 missions. At the end of the Soyuz TM-6 visit, one of its crew, Dr. Valeri Polyakov, remained on board with Titov and Manarov. On February 26, 1988, the two cosmonauts carried out an EVA lasting 4 hours and 25 minutes, during which they removed one of the sections of the solar panel and installed a new one. They also installed some new scientific experiments and removed samples of material that had been left exposed to open space, and inspected the Progress 34 spacecraft.
On June 30, 1988, they attempted a repair on the Roentgen X-ray telescope. The telescope had not been designed for repair or replacement so the EVA was a difficult one. As they sliced through the 20-layer thick thermal blanket to expose the telescope's faulty X-ray detector unit, the two men had to stop and rest several times, as they had nowhere to anchor themselves, and had to take turns holding each other steady. Their bulky gloves made removing the small bolts very difficult, and it took 90 minutes instead of the 20 allocated. When a special wrench they were using suddenly snapped, the EVA had to be aborted,and the two men returned inside the Mir, having spent 5 hours and 10 minutes in open space.
On October 20, 1988, repairs were successfully completed, and the X-ray telescope recommenced operations. The cosmonauts also installed some anchor points for the EVA scheduled for the joint Soviet-French mission, installed a new shortwave aerial, and took samples of a film which had formed over one of the portholes, before returning inside the Mir after 4 hours and 12 minutes. They then settled down to their program of experiments and observations. In November 1988, they played host to the joint Soviet-French mission. After three weeks of joint work, Titov and Manarov returned to Earth together with the French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chretien. Titov and Manarov returned to Earth after a mission lasting 365 days, 22 hours, 39 minutes, setting a new record, and exceeding one year in space for the first time.
On October 28, 1992, NASA announced that an experienced cosmonaut would fly aboard the STS-60 Space Shuttle mission. Titov was one of two candidates named by the Russian Space Agency for mission specialist training at the Johnson Space Center.
CURRENT ASSIGNMENT: Colonel Titov is assigned as a backup mission specialist on the crew of STS-60. Scheduled for launch in November 1993, STS-60 mission objectives include a number of microgravity experiments in Spacehab-2, and the Wake Shield Facility, a joint project between NASA and the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center of the University of Houston. The Wake Shield will test the creation of an ultra-high vacuum in which to produce extremely pure semi-conductor thin film crystals. Additionally, joint U.S./Russian sponsored science activities will be included in the mission. STS-60 will be the first joint U.S./Russian human space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, and the first to involve Russian and American space travelers on the same crew.
MAY 1993