Lonchakov has logged over 1400 hours of flight time, is a Class 1 Air Force pilot, and a paratroop training instructor with 526 jumps.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying commander Lonchakov, flight engineer cosmonaut Sergei Zalyotin and ESA astronaut Frank De Winne lifted off from the Baikonour Cosmodrome on 30 October 2002, at 03:11 UTC.

Thick fog on the ground obscured the launch from the cameras, which showed only a silhouette of the rocket and the flame exhaust.

[9] The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft with Lonchakov, Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke and space tourist Richard Garriott launched on 12 October 2008 at 7:01 UTC.

On 12 March 2009, a piece of debris from the upper stage of a Delta II rocket used to launch a GPS satellite in 1993, passed close to the ISS.

[12] The debris did not hit the space station and safely passed by at 16:38 UTC, and the crew were cleared to resume operations about five minutes later.

[12] Lonchakov returned to Earth with NASA astronaut Michael Fincke and spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi.

On 23 December 2008, Lonchakov performed his first career spacewalk with NASA astronaut Michael Fincke.

[13] They installed an electromagnetic energy measuring device, (Langmuir probe) on Pirs, removed the Russian Biorisk long-duration experiment, installed the Exposing Specimens of Organic and Biological Materials to Open Space (Expose-R) experiment package on Zvezda, but subsequently removed it after it failed to activate and transmit telemetry on ground command.

The two spacewalkers installed the EXPOSE-R experiment onto the universal science platform of the Zvezda module, removed tape straps from the area of the docking target on the Pirs airlock and docking compartment, inspected and photographed the exterior of the Russian portion of the station.

[16] The spacewalk was conducted from Pirs Docking Compartment airlock in Russian Orlan space suits.

Lonchakov had been scheduled to fly on Expedition 44 to the International Space Station, and at the time of announcement, no replacement had been named.

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