Oleg
Tsygankov Manager, Mir EVA Office |
Oleg Tsygankov served as the manager of the Mir EVA (extravehicular activity) office, which is responsible for EVA technical support and Mir maintenance. Tsygankov attended Kiev's Technological Institute. He received a Ph.D. in engineering from Moscow Aviation Institute and a doctorate from Kharkov Aviation Institute. He has worked for Energia since 1969.
In his Oral History, Tsygankov compared the Russian Orlan EVA suit with NASA's spacesuit: "[During our years] of our mutual work with NASA, we've studied, we've learned a great deal about different capabilities of Orlan and EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit]. Something is better in one spacesuit, something is better in another spacesuit, but from a standpoint of functionality, I would say they're both equivalent. Orlan would allow a person as high as 185 centimeters-it's about six feet, two inches-to walk into it�."
"Orlan is like a monostructure. Of course, there are some disadvantages in this concept, but there are advantages as well. A person can get into Orlan without anybody's assistance relatively quickly. You open the door from the back like a refrigerator, you walk into the spacesuit and close it. Then you're ready to do a spacewalk. Those are the special features of the Orlan."
Oleg Tsygankov Oral History (PDF)
Curator:
Kim Dismukes
Responsible NASA Official: John Ira Petty |