Leonid Kadeniuk

• STS -87 (1997)

Leonid Kostjantynowytsch Kadenjuk (Ukrainian Леонід Костянтинович Каденюк, scientific transliteration Leonid Kostjantynovyč Kadenjuk; born January 28, 1951 in Klischkiwzi, Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukrainian SSR ) is a retired Ukrainian cosmonaut. He was the first and only astronaut of independent Ukraine. Other spaceman from Ukraine are flown into space before the collapse of the Soviet Union and are therefore out when Soviet cosmonauts.

Kadenjuk attended the Higher Military Aviation School in Chernihiv, which he completed in 1971. He was then trained as a test pilot. In 1976 he was selected as a Soviet cosmonaut. The license of the State Research Institute of the Air Force, he earned in 1977.

Leonid Kadenjuk flew in 1997 with the U.S. space shuttle Columbia during the STS -87 mission in space. Between Kadenjuks selection as an astronaut and his space flight were 21 years, which is a record. The political situation had fundamentally changed in the meantime: was selected as a cosmonaut Leonid Kadenjuk of the Soviet Union, his space flight he graduated as a Ukrainian citizen in a U.S. space shuttle.