Russian citizen Polyakov spent 437 days aboard the Mir Space Station in 1994-1995. He researched whether people could "maintain their sanity" if they took a long trip to Mars.
Born on April 27, 1942 in Tula, Polyakov graduated from the Sechenov Medical Institute in Moscow.
He started working at the Institute for Biomedical Problems in 1971 and became a cosmonaut candidate a year later.
Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov (27 April 1942 – 7 September 2022) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut. He is the record holder for the longest single stay in space, staying aboard the Mir space station for more than 14 months (437 days 18 hours) during one trip.
Polyakovi, who received space training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center between 1978 and 1979, spent a total of 678 days, 16 hours and 33 minutes in space.
Born in the city of Tula, south of the capital Moscow, in 1942, Polyakov was first 'launched' into space in August 1988, lasting eight months. Six years later, he set the record for the longest trip.
Polyakov, who toured the Earth's orbit more than 7 thousand times between January 8, 1994 and March 22, 1995, said that this journey time was equivalent to going to Mars and returning. He retired in 2001.
When he landed in Kazakhstan in March 1995, he celebrated by drinking tea. Photographs of that moment were used extensively in the media.
Russian Space Agency Roskosmos did not mention the cause of death when explaining the death of Polyakov, which he described as one of the heroes of the USSR era. In the post on Telegram, it was stated that Polyakov helped prove that the human body can fly beyond Earth's orbit, into deep space.