Anatoly Levchenko should not be confused with Anatoly Nikolayevich Levchenko.
Anatoly Semyonovich Levchenko | |
Type: | Cosmonaut |
Nationality: | Soviet |
Birth Date: | 5 May 1941 |
Birth Place: | Krasnokutsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
Occupation: | Test Pilot |
Rank: | Captain, Soviet Air Force |
Selection: | 1988 Cosmonaut Group |
Time: | 7d 21h 58m |
Awards: | Hero of the Soviet Union |
Anatoly Semyonovich Levchenko (ru|Анатолий Семёнович Левченко; May 5, 1941 – August 6, 1988) was a Soviet cosmonaut in the Buran programme.
Trained as a test pilot and selected as a cosmonaut on 12 July 1980,[1] Levchenko was planned to be the back-up commander of the first Buran space shuttle flight. As part of his preparations, he also accomplished test-flights with Buran's counterpart OK-GLI aircraft.
In March 1987, Levchenko began extensive training for a Soyuz spaceflight, intended to give him some experience in space.[2] In December 1987, he occupied the third seat aboard the spacecraft Soyuz TM-4 to the space station Mir, and returned to Earth about a week later on Soyuz TM-3. His mission is sometimes called Mir LII-1, after the Gromov Flight Research Institute shorthand.[3]
In the year following his spaceflight, Anatoly Levchenko died of a brain tumor, in the Nikolay Burdenko Neurosurgical Institute in Moscow.[4]
He was married with one child.[1]
He was awarded the titles of Hero of the Soviet Union and Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR and the Order of Lenin.