In September 1983 he survived an emergency abort when a fire consumed the launch vehicle less than a minute before launch. The vehicle exploded seconds after his Soyuz module was automatically separated. His missions include a record stay of 365 days on the Russian space station Mir (December 1987–December 1988). He also made two flights on NASA space shuttles to dock with Mir: on Discovery in February 1995, and on Atlantis in September 1997. Titov was selected as a cosmonaut in 1976. He retired as a cosmonaut and went on to work for the Boeing Company in Moscow.