As a member of the group he completed a full course of training for Mir spaceflights as a crew commander.

They carried a crew of 2 or 3 (crew commander, driver and sometimes operator/observer).

As a consequence they were joined by three vehicles from 2 Troop to make up the numbers, although these lacked gun shields, leaving the crew commander exposed.

The crew commander handed him a pair of headphones with a mouthpiece, plugged into the ceiling by a black cord.

August 2000 to November 2001, he trained for a space flight as the Expedition 4 back-up crew commander.

To change the selected target, the crew commander pressed the appropriate button on the launch console.

On videotape, the dead crew commander says, "If you keep thinking there's a solution, you'll die here."

"Possible low-level inbound," he re- ported, highlighting the contact and crossloading it for the crew commander.

Belyayev was confirmed as prime crew commander of Voskhod 2 just 3 days prior to launch.

The launch was originally set for 22 February 1990, but was postponed repeatedly due to the illness of the crew commander and poor weather conditions.