MOSCOW, September 26./TASS/. Cosmonaut Gennady Manakov, credited with two space flights, has died at the age of 69, cosmonaut Maxim Surayev blogged in Twitter on Thursday.

"Gennady Mikhailovich Manakov died today. I am sad to say this. We cherish the memory of him," wrote Surayev, a legislator from the State Duma lower house of parliament.

Gennady Manakov was born in 1950 in the Chkalovsk (now Orenburg) Region. He was a military pilot, and in 1985 he was selected to work within the framework of the Buran program. He made his first space flight in 1990 as commander of the Soyuz TM-10 crew. Back then, he spent 130 days in space. His second flight (179 days) took place in 1993 on board the Soyuz TM-16 spacecraft. Manakov made three spacewalks with a total duration of 12 hours and 43 minutes.