The US Embassy in Ukraine mourns the death of Ukraine’s first and only Ukrainian cosmonaut Leonid Kadenyuk.
“We are deeply upset by this huge loss. Leonid Kadenyuk was a legend in US – Ukraine space cooperation and today we mourn alongside all of Ukraine,” the embassy said on Twitter.
As reported, Kadenyuk, the first and only Ukrainian cosmonaut, died in Kyiv on Jan.31 at the age of 67. The State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) told Interfax-Ukraine that according to preliminary information, Kadenyuk died of a heart attack.
Kadenyuk was born on Jan.28, 1951 in the village of Klishkivtsi in the Khotyn district of Chernivtsi region. His parents were village teachers. In 1995, Kadenyuk was selected to become a cosmonaut of the National Space Agency of Ukraine. After training at NASA between Nov.19 and Dec.5, 1997, he took part in the STS-87 mission of the United States’ Space Shuttle Columbia. He performed biological experiments on plants during the flight.
