Background
Alexey Leonov was born on the 30th of May, 1934 in Listvyanka, Tisulsky District, Kemerov Oblast, SFSR (Russia).
Alexey Leonov was born on the 30th of May, 1934 in Listvyanka, Tisulsky District, Kemerov Oblast, SFSR (Russia).
In 1953 Leonov completed 10th grade at secondary school № 21 in Kaliningrad (former Kyonigsberg).
In 1955 he graduated from 10th Military Aviation School for initial training of pilots in Kremenchug.
In 1957 he graduated from Chuguev Higher Aviation School for Pilots;
From September 1961 to January 1968 he was a student of Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy on a speciality «Construction and operation of aircraft and spacecraft and engines for them». He received qualification «pilot-cosmonaut-engineer».
In 1981 he completed postgraduate study at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.
From October, 30 1957 he was a pilot of 113 cannon artillery regiment of 10 guards aviation division of 69 Air Army, Kiev military district. Then, since December 14, 1959 - senior pilot, Soviet armed forces in Germany.
In 1960 he became a cosmonaut-listener in Cosmonaut Corps at Cosmonaut Training Center. From 1961 he started his cosmonaut career at Cosmonaut Training Center.
Before space flights Leonov was:
April-May 1963 - reserve pilot for the flight to the spacecraft «Vostok-5» under the program of joint flight of two spacecrafts;
May 13, 1970 - commander of the second crew for a flight to DOS-1 «Salyut»;
September 18, 1970 - March 20, 1971 - the commander of the backup crew under the program of the first expedition together with V. Kubasov and P. Kolodin;
April 23, 1971 - backup commander of the spacecraft «Soyuz-10» (commander V. Shatalov).
1982 - left the cosmonaut corps in connection with the appointment to a new position. From January 26, 1982 - 1991 he was the First Deputy Chief for flight and space training at the Y. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center
His 1st flight he made on 15-21 July 1975 as a second pilot of the spacecraft «Voskhod-2» together with P. Belyaev. During the flight he made first in the world spacewalk. Upon returning to Earth because of the failure of the automatic control system Belyaev implemented manual control of landing, which took place in the off-design area, 180 km from the city of Perm. The crew was discovered four hours later in the forest (between the villages of Sorokovaya and Shchuchino) and evacuated from the landing site two days later.
2 flight - July 15-21, 1975, he was commander of the spacecraft «Soyuz-19» under the ASTP program together with V. Kubasov. In the course of the flight, two dockings with the Apollo spacecraft (USA) were carried out with the crew consisting of: T. Stafford, V. Brand and D. Slayton. During the flight in docked state transitions of crew members from the ship to the ship were made. Mission duration: 5 days. 22 hours. 30 min. 51 seconds Call sign: «Soyuz-1».
