Kirill Peskov

Kirill Alexandrovich Peskov was born in 1990 in Kyzyl, the capital of the Tuva region in southern Siberia, then part of the Soviet Union. He pursued a career in aviation, training as a commercial pilot and serving as a first officer for a Russian airline, flying Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft on passenger routes for several years. That professional flying background — thousands of hours managing complex aircraft systems — made him a strong candidate for the cosmonaut corps, and in 2018 Roscosmos selected him as part of its cosmonaut recruitment known as Group 17. After completing the demanding program of technical, survival, and spacecraft training required of a cosmonaut, he was assigned to an international crew.

Peskov completed his first spaceflight as a member of SpaceX Crew-10, a mission notable for placing a Roscosmos cosmonaut aboard an American commercial spacecraft under the ongoing seat-exchange agreement between NASA and Roscosmos. He launched aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance on March 14, 2025, serving as a mission specialist during ascent and then as a flight engineer for Expedition 72 and Expedition 73. Over roughly 148 days in orbit he supported station maintenance, cargo operations, and the research programs of both the Russian and international segments before returning to Earth on August 9, 2025. For a cosmonaut of his generation, launching on a Crew Dragon rather than a Soyuz reflected the increasingly blended nature of ISS crewing in the mid-2020s.

Peskov's flight added him to the roster of active Roscosmos cosmonauts with station experience, and as a first-time flier he is positioned for future assignments aboard the ISS and potentially Russia's planned orbital station. His path from the flight deck of commercial Boeings to the International Space Station mirrors that of several fellow Crew-10 members who came from aviation backgrounds, and his participation in an integrated NASA-Roscosmos crew stands as a continuing example of cooperation in human spaceflight. An enthusiast of skydiving and scuba diving, he remains part of the cosmonaut corps at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.