Leonid Kizim

Template:Short description Template:Family name hatnote Template:Infobox astronaut Leonid Denisovich Kizim (Template:Langx; 5 August 1941 – 14 June 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut.

Biography

Kizim was born in Krasnyi Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Soviet Union (now Lyman, Ukraine).<ref name="RKA-obituary">Template:Cite web</ref> He graduated from Higher Air Force School in 1975; and served as a test pilot in the Soviet Air Force. He 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. On Soyuz T-15, he was part of the only crew to visit two space stations on one spaceflight (Mir and Salyut 7).

All together he spent 374 days 17 hours 56 minutes in space. Of all the Soviet cosmonauts (and of all the 199 cosmonauts from all countries who participated in space flights during the first 25 years of manned cosmonautics), he spent the greatest amount of time in space.<ref>полковник М. Ребров. Выполнено в космосе впервые // "Красная звезда" от 17 июля 1986</ref>

He later served as Deputy Director Satellite Control-Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense; after May 1995 he was Director of the Military Engineering Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics in St. Petersburg.

He left the cosmonaut program on June 13, 1987, but remained in the Soviet Air Force, and later the Russian Air Force. In 1993, he was placed in charge of the A.F. Mozhaysky Military-Space Academy. He held that position until he retired from the Russian Air Force on September 10, 2001, at the rank of Colonel General.

Kizim died on June 14, 2010. He left a wife and two children.<ref name="RKA-death">Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

He was awarded:

• Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (December 10, 1980 and October 2, 1984);<ref name=fed/>
• Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR<ref name=fed/>
• Order of Honour
• Order of Friendship<ref>Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 21, 1996 No. 243</ref>
• Three Orders of Lenin
• Medal "For the Development of Virgin Lands"

Foreign awards:

• Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia)
• Medal "30 Years of Victory over Japan's Militarists" (Mongolia)
• Medal "60 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution"
• Knight of the Legion of Honour (France)
• Kirti Chakra (India)
• Order of Merit (Ukraine)<ref>Указ президента України № 639/2001 від 15 серпня 2001 року «Про відзначення державними нагородами України іноземних громадян українського походження»</ref>

Literature

• Military Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Strategic Missile Forces / Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation; Ed.-in-Chief Igor Sergeyev, Vladimir Yakovlev, Nikolai Solovtsov. — M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1999. — 632 p. — 8500 copies. — ISBN 5-85270-315-X. — p. 228.

External links

• KIZIM, Col.-Gen. Leonid Denisovich International Who's Who. accessed September 4, 2006.
• Leonid Denissovich Kizim, astronautix.com
• The official website of the city administration Baikonur — Honorary citizens of Baikonur