This seat line belonged to the Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Russia’s one-hundredth cosmonaut, who took part in three space expeditions (2007, 2009 – 2010, and 2013-2014). In 2016 Oleg Kotov retired from his career as a cosmonaut, and was appointed as head of the TsNIIMash Center for Pilot Programs, and then, in 2018, as assistant head of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medical and Biological Problems.

These seat liners are custom made for each cosmonaut. It is part of the Kazbek-M shock-absorbing seat from the Soyuz spacecraft, in which the cosmonaut sat during the flight. It was made by Zvezda Scientific Production Company named after Academician G.I. Severin (Tomilino, Moscow region).

The body of the seat is standardized, but the linings are custom made for each cosmonaut. To make the liner, a plaster cast is made of the cosmonaut’s body. Once the plaster has hardened the resulting mold is sanded to remove and sharp edges — these could be very uncomfortable during the flight. For the final “fitting” the cosmonaut wears the Sokol space suit. The plaster cast is used as the basis for the casting of the aluminum frame, which is then covered with a soft elastic material.

It takes several weeks to make a single seat. The seat liner can only be used by one cosmonaut, and if he travels to the space station in one spacecraft and will return to Earth in another he will have to take the seat liner with him.

The seat has two positions: in one position the shock-absorber is activated, that is, it is ready to work, and in the second it is inactivated, or blocked. The inactivated position is intended for extended periods of force, when the spacecraft is being launched into orbit. In this position it is convenient for the cosmonaut to work at the spacecraft’s control panel. The activated position must be used when landing, as it will protect the cosmonaut from rapid impact-type forces.

These seat liners have saved the lives of cosmonauts three times during the history of the Soviet or Russian space program: in 1969 (Boris Volynov), in 1980 (Valery Kubasov and Bertalan Farkas) and in 1997 (Vasily Tsiblev and Alexandr Lazutkin). When landing on Earth, the impact was so strong that the roots of the cosmonaut’s teeth were broken, and he survived only thanks to the seat liner.

This seat liner was given to the K.E. Tsiolkovsky Museum of Aviation and Cosmonauticsin 2015 by Oleg Blinov, Master of Cosmonautics, and Oleg Artemev, cosmonaut, at the Thirteenth Tsiolkovsky Youth Conference.