Leonov, Aleksey

Leonov, Aleksey (Arkhipovich)

(born May 30, 1934, near Kemerovo, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Soviet cosmonaut. He joined the Soviet air force in 1953 and was selected for cosmonaut training in 1959. In 1965 he became the first person to perform a spacewalk. After exiting the spacecraft (Voskhod 2) and while tethered to the ship, Leonov made observations, took motion pictures, and practiced maneuvering in free fall before reentering the ship. A decade later he commanded the Soyuz craft that linked in orbit with the U.S. Apollo craft in July 1975.