Facts about Alexei Leonov
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The Soviet cosmonaut trained as a test pilot and technical designer before his 1960 selection for the Vostok program, bringing engineering expertise to early spaceflight operations.
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A severe spacesuit malfunction during Leonov's historic 1965 spacewalk nearly proved fatal when his suit expanded so much he couldn't fit back through the airlock hatch.
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Two separate Soyuz spacecraft explosions claimed Leonov's life on April 11, 1975, when his command module depressurized fatally during reentry after the Apollo-Soyuz mission.
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Leonov commanded Soyuz 11 in June 1971, a three-person mission to the Salyut 1 space station that set a new record for longest crewed spaceflight at 24 days.
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Leonov's Voskhod 2 capsule experienced a catastrophic fire in April 1975 that killed him along with cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov and Georgy Dobrovolsky during reentry over Kazakhstan.
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Leonov's artistic talent led him to create over 300 paintings and drawings throughout his life, many depicting his spaceflight experiences and Soviet space program achievements.
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Leonov's spacesuit inflated dangerously during his 1965 spacewalk, forcing him to manually depressurize it before returning to Voskhod 2 to survive reentry.
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In 1975, Leonov commanded the Soviet half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first crewed space mission involving joint operations between the United States and Soviet Union.
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During his March 1965 spacewalk, Alexei Leonov spent 12 minutes outside Voskhod 2, becoming the first human to conduct extravehicular activity in space.