Rukavishnikov studied at the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute and after graduation worked for Sergey Korolev's design bureau.

Rukavishnikov became the 50th human to fly in space on 23 April 1971, the launch date of Soyuz 10.

The mission, along with Vladimir Shatalov and Aleksei Yeliseyev, was intended to dock with the Salyut 1 space station.

Rukavishnikov resigned from the space programme in 1987, and returned to work for the same bureau he started with, by then known as Energia.

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