Yelena Serova

Yelena Olegovna Serova (Russian: Елена Олеговна Серова, born April 22, 1976) is a retired Russian cosmonaut and politician. She was selected as a cosmonaut in 2006 and was assigned in 2011 to Expedition 41, which launched in September 2014 and returned to Earth in March 2015. Serova became the first female Russian cosmonaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS) on 26 September 2014.

Serova is married to cosmonaut Mark Serov, selected in RKKE-13 in 2003, but retired before flying any missions. They have a daughter. Serova was one of five cosmonauts selected to raise the Russian flag at the 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Sochi.

Serova was born in Vozdvizhenka, a village which is part of the city of Ussuriysk in the Far East in Russia. She stayed in Vozdvizhenka until 1988. Serova went to Germany since her father who was with the military received a transfer. Afterwards, she came to Moscow. She met her future husband Mark at the Moscow Aviation Institute.

In March 2001, Serova graduated from the Aerospace Faculty of the Moscow Aviation Institute qualified as an engineer. In 2003 she graduated from the Moscow State Academy of Instrument Engineering and Information qualified as an economist.

Prior to enrollment as a cosmonaut, Serova has worked as an engineer of the 2nd category RSC Energia, and in the Mission Control Center.

Serova was selected as a test cosmonaut at the age of 30 in the RKKE-14 group in October 2006 while working as a flight engineer. She completed basic training at Star City in 2009.

Expedition 41/42

Serova works with test samples from the Kaskad cell cultivation experiment in the MRM2.

In late 2011, Russian Space Agency Chief Vladimir Popovkin announced that Serova would fly to the International Space Station, expected to spend up to six months in space performing biophysics and medical experiments. On September 25, 2014, she traveled aboard Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft to serve as a flight engineer for Expedition 41/42.

Serova is the fourth female cosmonaut to travel to space. Previously, only three female cosmonauts: Valentina Tereshkova (1963), Svetlana Savitskaya (1982, 1984) and Yelena Kondakova (1994, 1997) representing former Soviet Union and Russia have flown into space.

The Soyuz FG rocket carrying TMA-14M commander Aleksandr Samokutyayev, Yelena Serova and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome’s Site 1/5 at 20:25 UTC. Nine minutes after launch, the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft separated from the third stage of the FG rocket to reach orbit. Soon after, the spacecraft deployed its KURS navigation antennas, however, only one of the two power-generating solar arrays successfully unfolded. Despite the trouble encountered, TMA-14M linked up with the Space Station four orbits and six hours later at 1:12 UTC on September 26. When leak checks were complete, the hatch on the Poisk module was opened at 5:06 UTC and Serova with Samokutyayev and Wilmore entered the Space Station. On March 11, 2015, the crew successfully returned to Earth after 167 days in space.

In 2016, she was elected to the State Duma from the United Russia party and left the cosmonaut squad.