Today we congratulate our legendary cosmonaut Alexey Leonov and wish him happy Birthday!
In March 1960 he was enlisted to the first ever cosmonaut corps and started passing trainings in GCTC together with Yuri Gagarin.
In August 1964 Alexey Leonov and Pavel Belyaev started their trainings for the spacewalk to be the very first in the history of space exploration.
Voskhod-2 spacecraft was launched on March 18, 1965. This flight became one on the most significant event in the history of world cosmonautics. The humanity took its first step to the unknown and unexplored. For this flight and spacewalk Alexey Leonov was awarded a Hero of Soviet Union.
His second flight was also a milestone of cosmonautics. In July 1975 USSR Soyuz-19 and USA Apollo spacecrafts docked in the space for the first time. Russian cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valery Kubasov shook the hands with American colleagues Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald Slayton. This flight laid the basis of for international cooperation in space. The docking took place on July 17, the undocking – on July 19.
Besides Alexey Leonov is also known as talented painter, sportsman and scientist.
