Roman Yurievich Romanenko (Major, Russian Air Force; Russian: Роман Юрьевич Романенко; born August 9, 1971) is a retiredcosmonaut at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
After graduation from Star City high school in 1986, Romanenko entered the Leningrad Suvorov military school, from which he graduated in 1988. In 1988, he entered the Chernigov High Air Force School for pilots, from which he graduated in 1992 as a pilot-engineer.
Following graduation from pilot school Romanenko served as a second commander in the Air Force. He flew L-39 and Tu-134 aircraft. Romanenko has logged over 500 hours of flight time. He is a Class 3 Air Force pilot.
On May 6, 2010, Romanenko was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation medal by the decree of the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.He was also awarded the honorary title Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation.
Cosmonaut career
Romanenko was selected as a cosmonaut candidate at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Office in December 1997. From January 1998 to November 1999 he undertook his basic training course. In November 1999 he was qualified as a Test Cosmonaut. He served as the backup to Oleg Kotov as the Commander of Soyuz TMA-10 and Fyodor Yurchikhin as Commander of Expedition 15.
Expedition 20/21
On May 27, 2009, Romanenko was launched into space as the commander of the Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He was part of the Expedition 20 and Expedition 21 crews and was the third second-generation space traveller after Sergey Volkov and Richard Garriott. Romanenko served as a Flight Engineer aboard the ISS during the two long duration missions.
After spending 187 days and 20 hours in space, Romanenko returned to Earth along with astronauts, Robert Thirsk and Frank de Winne on December 1, 2009.
Expedition 34/35
On April 19, 2013 Romanenko completed his first spacewalk with fellow cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, a 6-hour 38 minute EVA to conduct repairs to the ISS.