Oleg Valeriyevich Kotov (Russian: Олег Валериевич Котов) was born on 27 October 1965 in Simferopol, Crimean oblast in the Ukrainian SSR.

He was a member (Flight Engineer) of the ISS Expedition 15, that launched on 7 April 2007 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, aboard Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft, together with Fyodor Yurchikhin and space tourist Charles Simonyi.

[3] On 1 May 2010 Kotov manually flew the final 1 km of the incoming Progress M-05M spacecraft to the ISS after it failed to return to the proper docking orientation following a series of thruster firings.

Kotov using the station's Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous Unit (TORU) system took control and guided the spacecraft to successfully dock with the ISS.

[5] Kotov launched on Soyuz TMA-10M on 25 September 2013, with Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazansky and American astronaut Michael Hopkins joined Expedition 37 as a Flight Engineer.

On 30 May 2007 at 19:05 GMT, accompanied by Fyodor Yurchikhin, Kotov began his first spacewalk, lasting 5 hours and 25 minutes, during which they installed protective panels to shield the ISS from space debris.

The spacewalking duo connected cables between the Poisk and Zvezda modules, installed docking targets and Kurs aerials and attached additional handrails to exit hatches.

They also continued work on an extravehicular activity workstation and biaxial pointing platform by removing launch brackets and bolts, as well as retrieving an experimental package.

The cosmonauts attached two (high and medium resolution) cameras as part of a commercial agreement between a Canadian firm and the Russian Federal Space Agency to provide Earth views to internet-based subscribers.

In addition to the camera installation work, Kotov and Ryazansky also removed and jettisoned the Vsplesk experiment package designed to monitor seismic effects using high-energy particle streams in the near-Earth environment.

Kotov and Ryazansky also removed a cassette container attached to the Pirs docking compartment, installed earlier as part of a materials exposure experiment.

They also removed a worksite interface adapter attached to a portable data grapple fixture on the Zarya module to ensure that future operations with the Canadarm2 robotic arm will not be disrupted.

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.