Leonid Kadeniuk

Who is Leonid Kadeniuk?

Leonid Kostyantynovych Kadenyuk, born 28 January 1951 in Klishkivtsi, Chernivtsi Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR is the first astronaut of independent Ukraine. He made his flight on NASA's Columbia in 1997 as part of the international mission STS-87. Kadeniuk holds the rank of Ukrainian Air Force Major General.

Kadeniuk was a career Soviet military pilot. He began his service in the Soviet Air Force and was selected in 1976 for the Soviet Cosmonaut Corps. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, Kadeniuk remained in the Russian Space Forces and adopted Russian citizenship. In 1995, during the preparation of the first Ukrainian space mission, he volunteered to take part and returned to his homeland.

There were two main candidates for the mission, the other being Yaroslav Pustovyi, a civil Ukrainian scientist in space research. Kadeniuk was chosen as better-trained and accustomed to space mission organization.

After the flight, Leonid Kadeniuk continued his Ukrainian space program career in the NKAU.

In the 2002 parliamentary election, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the list of pro-Kuchma United Ukraine Bloc.