Photo: NASA / AFP / Getty Images
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov is a former Soviet cosmonaut who, in 1965, became the first person to step out of a spaceship and walk in space .
On 1975, was in command of the Soyuz spacecraft that participated in the first encounter between a Soviet and American spacecraft
.
Leonov was born in Listvyanka in the Altai region of Siberia on 30 May 1934. He graduated with honors from the Chuguyev Higher Air Force School and, in 1965, of the Zhukovskiy Air Force Engineering Academy.
On 1960, Alexei Leonov became one of the original twenty cosmonauts chosen by the Russian space program. His first spaceflight was the Voskhod 2 mission on 18 March 1965.
Ninety minutes after launch, Leonov became the first person to walk in space, floating freely outside the Voskhod capsule for more than ten minutes above the Earth.
When Leonov tried to return to the capsule, he couldn’t because the difference in pressure between the air in his spacesuit and the vacuum of space expanded the suit, making it so rigid he couldn’t move his fingers. Finally, he sucked some of the air out of the suit and was able to close the outer hatch of the airlock. When Leonov finished his spacewalk, it had lasted more than twenty minutes.
During re-entry, the Voskhod’s on-board computer malfunctioned and the capsule landed more than 30 miles off course in a remote section of the Ural Mountains. After two days and a cold night in the desert, the cosmonauts were finally rescued.
Alexei Leonov received the Hero of the Soviet Union award for his spacewalk and became deputy commander of the cosmonaut team, teaching others how to perform extravehicular activities.
Ten years after Voskhod 2, Alexei Leonov re-entered space in 1975 as mission commander Soyuz 19, el first joint Soviet-American space project. The mission was known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) in the United States.
The 15 July 1975, Leonov and Valery Kubasov were on board the Soyuz 19 when it blasted off from the Baikanor Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the same day the Americans launched an Apollo capsule from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Two days later, the two spacecraft docked, allowing crews to rotate between the two spacecraft and perform mostly ceremonial activities.
With all joint flight activities completed, the ships went their separate ways.
The 21 July 1975, the safe landing of the Soyuz 19 ended Leonov’s career in space.
Received a second Hero award of the Soviet Union by ASTP. In his career, he received the Order of Lenin and Order of the Red Star awards.
Retired from government service in 1991 with the rank of Major General in the Soviet Air Force.
Keep reading:
- Two female astronauts in space: NASA’s historic spacewalk (photos and video)
- Valery Bykovsky, the Russian cosmonaut whose space record was never broken
- The day the CIA hijacked Lunik, a spaceship from the Soviet Union that traveled to the Moon