posted 06-15-2010 08:11 AM               

Russian Cosmonaut, Twice Hero of the USSR, Leonid Kizim Passes Away

Soviet cosmonaut, pilot, Twice Hero of the USSR, Colonel General Leonid Denisovich Kizim passed away on June 14.

Leonid Denisovich Kizim (born August 5, 1941 in Krasnyi Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR) was selected as a cosmonaut on October 23, 1965.

Kizim flew as commander on Soyuz T-3, Soyuz T-10 and Soyuz T-15, and also served as backup commander for Soyuz T-2. All together he spent 374 days, 17 hours, 56 minutes in space. He retired on June 13, 1987.

Administration of the Russian Federal Space Agency expresses deepest condolences on the death of Leonid Kizim to his relatives and friends.

Leonid Kizim, visited two space stations in single mission, dies

Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Kizim, who in 1986 commanded the only mission in history to visit two space stations in one flight -- which also marked the first crewed flight to Mir -- died Monday, June 14, according to Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos. He was 68.

posted 06-16-2010 05:43 PM               

Originally turned down for flying school because he was too short of stature, Kizim's tenacity saw him through and he joined the Soviet Air Force in 1963. He was one of the 22-strong Air Force cadre selected in the third cosmonaut group late in 1965, but he would have to wait some fifteen years before he made his first space flight on Soyuz T-3, a craft he had helped to develop, on a successful two-week mission to repair the Salyut 6 space station. Promoted to colonel post-flight, he became active in a special Salyut training group preparing for long-duration missions. During two spacewalks conducted by cosmonauts from Salyut 7 in 1983, Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov conducted similar activities in a water tank at the cosmonaut training centre.

In 1984 Kizim commanded the three-man Soyuz T-10 mission to Salyut 7 after the original T-10 mission was aborted following a potentially catastrophic launch pad explosion in the booster rocket. He would spend a record eight months aboard Salyut 7, during which he and Solovyov conducted six spacewalks to carry out complex and difficult repairs to the station's exterior fittings. His second daughter Tatyana was born in the third month of his stay aboard Salyut 7, but he did not get to see her until two months later when the visiting Soyuz T-12 brought up photographs and videotapes for him.

His third and final mission was to the Mir space station as commander of Soyuz T-15, the last flight in that series of Soyuz craft. During the crew's two-month tenure they boarded the T-15 craft and transferred over to Salyut 7 - the first such manoeuvre in spaceflight history.

Kizim completed just under 9,000 hours in orbit during his three space flights, and carried out a total of eight spacewalks. He left the cosmonaut team in 1987.

I have always had the greatest respect and admiration for Kizim's astonishing achievements, which are generally and sadly overlooked, but he was a man filled with determination, persistence and sheer guts.

Bravo, and Ave, Leonid Kizim.

posted 06-17-2010 07:19 PM               

They thanked me by presenting me with a pin off Kizim's coat of the USSR space agency.

I also remember he was very attentive to his "handler" that day.

Thank you... fellow traveler.