Aleksei Leonov

Aleksei Leonov (born May 30, 1934, Listvyanka, Russia, U.S.S.R.—died October 11, 2019, Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet cosmonaut who performed the first space walk.

After early schooling in Kaliningrad, Leonov joined the Soviet air force in 1953. He completed his flight training in 1957 and served as a fighter pilot until 1959, when he was selected for cosmonaut training.

On March 18, 1965, Voskhod 2 was launched into space with Leonov and Pavel Belyayev aboard. During the second orbit Leonov let himself out of the spacecraft by means of an air lock while about 177 km (110 miles) above the Crimea. Tethered to the ship, Leonov made observations, took motion pictures, and practiced maneuvering in free-fall for about 10 minutes before reentering Voskhod 2 over western Siberia. The ship landed after completing 17 orbits (26 hours) in space.

A decade later, Leonov was commander of the Soyuz 19 craft that linked in orbit with the U.S. Apollo craft on July 17, 1975, for the first joint Soviet-American spaceflight. He retired as a cosmonaut in 1982, and from 1982 to 1991 he worked at the Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, near Moscow. In 2004 he wrote a book, Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race, with American astronaut David Scott.