Andriyan Grigoryevich Nikolayev was a Soviet cosmonaut. He was an ethnic Chuvash. Nikolayev flew on two space flights: Vostok 3 (effectively becoming the third Soviet cosmonaut) and Soyuz 9. His call sign in these flights was Falcon (Russian: Со́кол). On both, he set new endurance records for the longest time a human being had remained in orbit. He also served as backup for the Vostok 2 and Soyuz 8 missions.
Vostok 3's mission goal was to test human body's ability to function in weightlessness and to test the Vostok 3KA spacecraft for longer flights. They also tested craft-to-craft communications by launching Vostok 4 a day after Vostok 3. Their trajectories brought them approximately 6.5 km from each other and cosmonauts were able to communicate via radio. This also marked the first time more than one crewed craft was orbiting earth at the same time. The spacecraft carried cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev to orbit where he orbited Earth 64 times before reentering. The mission lasted for 3 days 22 hours & 28 minutes.
Low Earth OrbitSoyuz 9 carried cosmonauts Andrian Nikolayev & Vitali Sevastyanov to orbit. The mission lasted 17 days, 16 hours & 58 minutes completing 288 orbits around Earth. They broke the endurance record held by Gemini 7 for 5 years. This was the first crewed space launch that lifted off at night. As of 2016 it still holds the record for longest crewed flight by a solo spacecraft. The goal of the mission was to conduct various pysiological and biomedical experiments on themselves and invastigate possible social implications of extended duration spaceflight.
Low Earth OrbitThe Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, commonly known as Roscosmos, is the governmental body responsible for the space science program of the Russian Federation and general aerospace research. Soyuz has many launch locations the Russian sites are Baikonur, Plesetsk and Vostochny however Ariane also purchases the vehicle and launches it from French Guiana.