Today it is generally accepted that the first Ukrainian cosmonaut is Leonid Kadenyuk. And this despite the fact that among those who, from the beginning of the 60s until the collapse of the Soviet Union, visited the Earth's orbit, there were quite a few who were most directly connected with the Ukrainian USSR.
P. R. Popovich (1930-2009)
Pavel Romanovich was born on October 5, 1930 in the city of Uzin, Kyiv region. After the war he moved to Magnitogorsk. Having studied at the local flying club and at the military aviation school, in 1960 he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps. After 2 years, he made a flight to earth orbit lasting almost 3 days, which was also the first space expedition in which two ships were simultaneously involved. The experience turned out to be successful, which made it possible to carry out the most complex docking operations in orbit in the future. Thus, it can be argued that the first Ukrainian cosmonaut is Popovich P. R.
In 1974, Pavel Romanovich made the 2nd space flight and again he was one of the pioneers, since it was the first flightto the orbital station, where the crew under his leadership conducted numerous observations and experiments. The cosmonaut was twice awarded the title of Hero and many other awards, including foreign ones. In addition, in 2005 he was awarded the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise 4th degree for his significant contribution to the strengthening and development of Ukrainian-Russian relations.
G. T. Beregovoy (1915-1995)
In the list of "Ukrainian cosmonauts" a special place is occupied by the name of this ace pilot, who was born a year after the start of the First World War in the Poltava region. He was the first of all the pilots to become a holder of the Order of the Golden Star and received the title of Hero of the USSR during the Second World War. In 1963, Beregovoy was selected by the command to the detachment of future cosmonauts for training.
After some time, he was told that the time had come for the flight, for which he had been training day and night for a long time. Beregovoy made his first flight into space on a Soyuz-3 rocket. The duration of the expedition was about 4 days.
G. With Shonin (1935-1997)
Georgy Stepanovich is a native of the Luhansk region. In 1960 he was enlisted in the USSR cosmonaut corps, and made his first flight in October 1969 together with V. Kubasov. During the flight, methods for welding metals were tested under weightless conditions. The astronaut is the author of the books "The Very First" and "Memory of the Heart".
B. A. Lyakhov
The astronaut was born in 1941 in the city of Anthracite, Luhansk region. First flight into low Earth orbitHe completed 175 days in 1979. He performed 50 experiments on growing single crystals of semiconductor materials in zero gravity, as well as creating new metal compounds and alloys.
The second time he went into space in 1983, together with A. P. Alexandrov. This time "absent" from Earth for 149 days. In 1988, for the 3rd time, he launched into space orbit as the commander of the Soyuz TM-6 spacecraft. Worked aboard the Mir station for a week.
L. D. Kizim (born 1941)
In the list of Ukrainian cosmonauts, Leonid Denisovich occupied a special place, since the total time spent by him in Earth's orbit during 3 flights is more than 24 months. In 1996 he was awarded the Order of Friendship for his great contribution to the successful completion of the 1st stage of Russian-American cooperation under the Mir-Shuttle program.
L. I. Popov
Leonid Ivanovich was born in 1945 in the Kirovograd region of the Ukrainian SSR. He was enlisted in the cosmonaut corps in 1970. Made three flights into orbit. In 1982 he was awarded the State Prize of the Ukrainian USSR.
B. V. Vasyutin
Ukrainian cosmonauts of the Soviet era were mostly people who were fanatically devoted to their profession, ready for anything. Among them is Vladimir Vladimirovich Vasyutin. He was born in March 1952 in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR. He was enlisted in the cosmonaut corps in 1976. He went on a flight in September 1985 together with G. Grechko and A. Volkov. As it turned out later, fearingsuspension from flying, he hid that he was suffering from a urological disease, violating the instructions.
Once in orbit, Vasyutin soon felt unwell and was forced to confess everything to the crew members. Due to the deterioration of his he alth, the flight had to be stopped and the crew returned to Earth. As a result, the expedition was cancelled. Nevertheless, Vasyutin was awarded a number of orders and medals. Passed away after a long and prolonged illness in 2002.
Anatoly Pavlovich Artsebarsky
Many Ukrainian cosmonauts and scientists in the field of astronautics have made a great contribution to the development of human knowledge about the possibilities of space exploration outside our planet. Among them is Anatoly Pavlovich Artsebarsky. He was born in 1956 in the Ukrainian SSR, in the small village of Prosyanaya, which was located in the Dnepropetrovsk region.
He was enrolled in the detachment as a test cosmonaut. In 1991 he made a space flight with S. Krikalev and British astronaut H. Sharman. During the expedition, he carried out 6 spacewalks with a total duration of more than 32 hours. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The first Ukrainian cosmonaut Leonid Kadenyuk
Ukrainian astronaut was born in 1951 in the Chernivtsi region, in the village of Klishkovichi. In 1976, he was accepted into the corps of Soviet cosmonauts and in its ranks he underwent the necessary training course for flights. Nevertheless, he did not manage to take part in the expedition to the Soyuz station. Allthe fact is that the Ukrainian cosmonaut Kadenyuk divorced his wife, which for that period of time was considered a manifestation of promiscuity and was incompatible with the high title of the conqueror of interplanetary space.
In 1983, he was even expelled from the cosmonaut corps, but in 1988 he rejoined its ranks and began to prepare for flights into space on a new type of shuttle, such as Buran. It soon became clear that this manned ship was unlikely to be able to go on an expedition in the near future, and this led to the fact that work on this project was stopped.
In the mid-90s, Kadenyuk received an invitation from the authorities of the independent Ukrainian Republic to take citizenship of the country in which he was born. After that, he was included in the group, which soon went to the United States to prepare for flights under the NASA program. In November 1997, Kadenyuk finally made a space flight on the Columbia spacecraft. During the expedition, he was engaged in scientific experiments. The flight lasted about half a month. After graduation, Kadenyuk returned to his homeland and began working in the NSA of Ukraine, continuing to be listed as a NASA cosmonaut.
N. I. Adamchuk-Chalaya
When the topic of the story is Ukrainian cosmonauts of modern times, the name of this biologist must be mentioned. Nadezhda Adamchuk-Chalaya was born in 1970 in Kyiv. In 1996, she was included in the group of Ukrainian cosmonauts selected to prepare for flights on the American Space Shuttle.
The woman successfully completed the entire course of classes and training and received the appropriate qualifications. However, so far she has not managed to make a single space flight. At the moment, Adamchuk-Chalaya works at the Institute of Botany. N. Kholodny NASU. He is engaged in the preparation of experiments that will be carried out in the future at the orbital station. In 2003, she became the winner of the Presidential Prize of Ukraine.
Valentin Bondarenko
The fate of Ukrainian cosmonauts of the Soviet era was not always happy. First of all, this concerns Valentin Bondarenko. He was born in 1937 in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. In 1960 he was selected to the very 1st detachment of cosmonauts of the USSR. Perhaps because he was the youngest of its members, he was not included in the famous "top six". Its trials were to begin in mid-March 1961. On the 10th day of training in the depressurization chamber, in which, as is known, the oxygen level was increased, Valentin was allowed to remove the medical sensors. He took it into his head to wipe his skin with cotton wool soaked in alcohol, and then throw it in a trash can.
However, the cotton wool, having flown by, fell on the spiral of the electric stove, as a result of which a fire broke out in the room. The flame instantly engulfed the camera, and immediately switched to the astronaut's training suit. The doctor on duty could not immediately open the hermetic doors of the depressurization chamber. When Bondarenko managed to get out, the young man was still conscious. For the life of a youngThe man's doctors fought for 8 hours, but it was too late, and he died from burn shock. In 1961, a few months after his death, the astronaut was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star.
G. G. Nelyubov
The fate of this cosmonaut was no less tragic. He was born in the spring of 1934 on the Crimean peninsula. In 1960, he was also selected for the first cosmonaut corps. It soon turned out that Nelyubov is one of the best, and there is a high probability that he will be the first person to fly into space. And when Gagarin was nevertheless chosen for these purposes, Nelyubov was appointed Yuri's understudy. However, he did not have a chance to fulfill his dream and fly into space, because he had he alth problems. This became a real tragedy for the young man, and soon, due to systematic violations of military discipline, he was expelled from the space detachment. He could not survive this. In 1966, he was found crushed under the wheels of an express train.
Now you know the Soviet and Ukrainian cosmonauts. The names of those and others are worth knowing and remembering, since their work, fraught with great risk, allows humanity to strive into the future and enjoy the fruits of extraterrestrial technologies. You can see photos of Ukrainian astronauts in this article.
