Character from Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Hail Mary's engineer — a Roscosmos cosmonaut who was blunt, capable, and dead before the mission even started in earnest.
Ilyukhina is straightforward to the point of abruptness. She says what she means, means what she says, and has zero patience for anything that wastes time. As the Hail Mary's engineer, she was responsible for keeping the spacecraft's systems functional across a twelve-light-year journey — a job she accepted with the same blunt pragmatism that defined everything about her. Like Yao, she died during the coma transit. Grace discovers her body alongside Yao's when he wakes, and her death is part of the weight he carries: two people who volunteered for this mission died, and the one person who refused is the one who survived.
Russian, solidly built, with the no-nonsense physicality of a Roscosmos-trained engineer. Nothing about her is decorative.
Also known as: Ilyukhina, Olesya