Russian cosmonaut

Robert Z. Pearlman Space.com

9 hours ago

NASA

Cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov, seen here on board the International Space Station in 2008, resigned from the Russian federal space agency, despite being assigned to a 2015 mission.

A veteran Russian cosmonaut who was assigned to command the International Space Station in 2015 has unexpectedly resigned.

Cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov tendered his resignation to the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, on Thursday. Russian news agencies, quoting the head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, reported Lonchakov will be "formally discharged" on Sept. 14.

"He came and told me that he had found a better job than working in space," Sergei Krikalev, the training center's chief and the current record holder for most time in space by any human, told the Interfax news service. "Frankly, we were counting on him because he was not just in the unit, (but) he was assigned to a crew." [Quiz: Do You Know the International Space Station?]

Lonchakov was scheduled to fly as the commander of the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-16M, launching in March 2015 with Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, the space station's first two yearlong crew members.

Once on board the orbiting laboratory, Lonchakov was set to join the Expedition 43 crew as a flight engineer before taking over command of the space station as the leader of Expedition 44 in May 2015. He was then to return to Earth in October 2015.

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Cosmonaut due to command space station resigns for 'better job'