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Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyev (; ; alternate spelling "Solovyov"; born 16 January 1948) is a retired Latvian and Soviet Union cosmonaut and pilot. Solovyev holds the world record on the number of spacewalks performed (16) and accumulated time spent spacewalking (over 82 hours).
Delays with Buran and increased need for space station crews resulted in his transferring to training for the Interkosmos programme in January 1982. The following year he was designated as a reserve crew commander for missions to Salyut 7, with Aleksandr Serebrov and Nikolai Moskalenko. In 1985 he was assigned as reserve crew commander of Soyuz T-15 with Viktor Savinykh. The following year he was assigned as back up commander of the Soyuz TM-3 mission to Mir with Savinykh and Munir Habib (Syria).
He was commander for the 9-day Mir EP-2 visiting ("lifeboat" swap) crew June 1988 launched aboard Soyuz TM-5 and returned aboard Soyuz TM-4. His crew were Viktor Savinykh and Aleksandr Aleksandrov (of Bulgaria). He thus became the 65th Soviet Cosmonaut with the personal callsign "Spring".
He then served as the back up commander for Soyuz TM-8. Commander 179 day Soyuz TM-9/Mir EO-6 long-duration mission February to August 1990, with Aleksandr Balandin. This included an EVA to repair thermal blankets on Soyuz TM-9, and a second EVA when repairs to the Kvant-2 module hatch were unsuccessfully attempted.
He served as reserve crew commander with Andrei Zaytsev for Mir EO-10 but the crew was disbanded after flight programme changes. He was back up commander Mir EO-11/Soyuz TM-14.
He was commander for the 188-day Mir EO-12/Soyuz TM-15 with Sergei Avdeyev, from July 1992 until February 1993. He conducted four more EVAs during the mission. Launching only with them was Michel Tognini of France.
He served as back up commander of Mir EO-18, and then as commander of Mir EO-19 with Nikolai Budarin. They launched as passengers aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-71 mission in June 1995. This was at the first Orbiter docking with Mir, and the EO-19 crew undocked Soyuz TM-21 briefly to observe and photograph the departure of Atlantis. Solovyev also performed three EVAs. They returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-21 in September after 75 days.
His final space mission was as commander of Mir EO-24/Soyuz TM-26 for 197 days from August 1997 until February 1998 with Pavel Vinogradov. After an automatic Kurs approach, Solovyev performed the final docking manually when he was unable to verify the accuracy of the automatic targeting. They joined NASA astronaut Michael Foale who transferred from EO-23 until his departure aboard Atlantis. He was replaced by David Wolf and then Andy Thomas who remained to join EO-25. His first EVA on 22 August 1997 was an unusual "internal spacewalk" to connect power and survey damage to the depressurised Spektr module. This had been holed in the collision with Progress M-34 on 25 June. Solovyev performed six more EVAs to set a world record total of 16, with a world record combined duration of 82 hours 21 minutes. He commented:
"It just came about. I never referred to my numbers as a record, nor did I ever think about beating someone else's accomplishments before going out on a walk."
He was tapped to be on the crew of the first expedition to occupy the International Space Station. However he declined to serve under an American commander for the long-duration mission, since his experience of long-duration spaceflight far exceeded that of any American astronaut.
Solovyev left the Cosmonaut Detachment in 1999 having reached compulsory retirement age and became the president of "For the Good of the Fatherland", a national organisation recognising the work of Russians devoted to cultural and social development.
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