Soviet flight engineer Gennady Strekalov flew Soyuz T-11 with Rakesh Sharma in April 1984 and received India's Ashoka Chakra.
Flight Engineer on Soyuz T-11
On 3 April 1984, Soyuz T-11 lifted off from Baikonur with Yuri Malyshev in command, Gennady Strekalov as flight engineer and Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma of the Indian Air Force as research cosmonaut. The crew docked with the Salyut 7 station.
They came home on 11 April in the descent module of Soyuz T-10, which was already at the station. The flight lasted 7 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes.
India conferred the Ashoka Chakra on all three crew members. Strekalov is one of the few non-Indian recipients.
Five Flights, 268 Days
Strekalov was an engineer from Mytishchi, near Moscow. Sources disagree on his birth date in October 1940, giving the 26th or the 28th. The Spacefacts record lists five flights: Soyuz T-3 in 1980, Soyuz T-8 in 1983, Soyuz T-11 in 1984, Soyuz TM-10 to Mir in 1990, and Soyuz TM-21 to Mir in 1995. The same record also lists him on the crew of the aborted Soyuz T-10A.
He returned from his last mission aboard the US shuttle on STS-71 in July 1995. His spaceflight time totalled 268 days, 22 hours and 22 minutes. He died of cancer in Moscow on 25 December 2004.
What the citation recorded
Summary, not the official text: no citation for Strekalov could be read on a government source. Published accounts say India conferred the Ashoka Chakra on him and on Yuri Malyshev, the Soviet members of the Soyuz T-11 crew, alongside Rakesh Sharma.
Cover image: NASA/JSC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized for this page. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gennady_Strekalov.jpg