Leonid Kadenuk Astronaut Date of Birth: 28.01.1951 Country: Ukraine

1. Biography of Leonid Kadeniuk
2. Early Life and Education
3. Cosmonaut Training
4. Post-Cosmonaut Career
5. Return to Space
6. Later Career and Legacy

Biography of Leonid Kadeniuk

Leonid Kadeniuk was a Ukrainian astronaut known for being the first Ukrainian to travel to space. He was born on January 28, 1951, in the village of Klishkovychi in the Khotyn district of the Chernivtsi region, Ukraine.

Early Life and Education

In 1967, Kadeniuk graduated from high school in Chernivtsi and later that year, he entered the Chernihiv Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots. He completed his training in 1971 and served in the Soviet Air Force aviation units.

Cosmonaut Training

In 1976, Kadeniuk was selected to join the Soviet cosmonaut corps, specifically the Air Force Group No. 6. He underwent extensive training for spaceflights on Soyuz spacecraft and orbital stations such as Salyut. In 1977, while still working at the Cosmonaut Training Center, he also graduated from the Chkalov Air Force Test Pilot School.

Post-Cosmonaut Career

From 1984 to 1988, Kadeniuk worked as a test pilot and flight instructor at the Chkalov Air Force Research Institute, participating in the testing of various aircraft models, including the aerospace MiG-31 EPOS. He trained 15 pilots as a flight instructor.

Return to Space

In 1988, Kadeniuk rejoined the cosmonaut corps and prepared for spaceflights on the Buran spacecraft. He also completed his studies at the Moscow Aviation Institute's Faculty of Aircraft Engineering in 1989. Kadeniuk was slated to command a Ukrainian crew for a mission to the Mir space station, which was later canceled. He then trained for a spaceflight involving the docking of the Buran spacecraft with the Mir space station, but that mission was also canceled due to the closure of the Buran program. Instead, he underwent training as the commander of the Soyuz TM spacecraft for flights to the Mir space station.

Later Career and Legacy

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kadeniuk remained in Russia and served in the Russian Air Force. However, in 1995, he resigned from the Russian Armed Forces and obtained Ukrainian citizenship. He moved to Ukraine and worked as a junior research fellow at the M.M. Hryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

In 1996, Kadeniuk was selected as part of the Ukrainian astronaut group to undergo training for spaceflights on the Space Shuttle. In November 1997, he flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia (STS-87) as a payload specialist. During the mission, he conducted experiments on the artificial pollination of soybean and rapeseed sprouts to study seed production in microgravity conditions. The flight lasted for 15 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes, and 1 second.

After returning from space, Kadeniuk continued his work at the National Space Agency of Ukraine and remained affiliated with NASA's astronaut group. On January 31, 2018, at the age of 68, Kadeniuk tragically passed away during a morning jog in Tsarske Selo Park in Kyiv, presumably from a heart attack caused by a detached blood clot. It was his first run after a month-long break. He was laid to rest on February 2 in Kyiv, at plot 42-A of Baikove Cemetery.