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Pyotr Klimuk

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Pyotr Klimuk
Пётр Климук
Klimuk in 1970
Born (1942-07-10) 10 July 1942 (age 82)
StatusRetired
NationalityBelarusian
OccupationPilot-cosmonaut
Awards
Space career
Cosmonaut
RankColonel General
Time in space
78d 18h 17m
Selection1965 Cosmonaut Group
MissionsSoyuz 13, Soyuz 18, Soyuz 30
Bust of Pyotr Klimuk on Cosmonauts Boulevard in Brest, Belarus

Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk (Belarusian: Пётр Ільіч Клімук; Russian: Пётр Ильич Климу́к; born 10 July 1942) is a former Soviet cosmonaut and the first Belarusian to perform space travel. Klimuk made three flights into space. From 1991 to 2003, he headed the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

Life

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Klimuk attended the Leninski Komsomol Chernigov High Aviation School and entered the Soviet Air Force in 1964. The following year, he was selected to join the space programme.

His first flight was a long test flight on Soyuz 13 in 1973. This was followed by a mission to the Salyut 4 space station on Soyuz 18 in 1975.

From 1976 he became involved in the Intercosmos and made his third and final spaceflight on an Intercosmos flight with Polish cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski on Soyuz 30 in 1978.[1][2]

He resigned from the cosmonaut team in 1978 to take up a position as the Assistant to the Chief of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. In 1991 he was promoted to Chief of that facility and remained in that post until retirement in 2003.

Klimuk is a graduate of the Gagarin Air Force Academy and the Lenin Military-Political Academy.

He is the author of two books on human spaceflight: Beside the Stars, and Attack on Weightlessness.

Honours and awards

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Books

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References

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  1. ^ Pyotr Klimuk. Windows to the Universe. Windows.ucar.edu. Retrieved on 4 August 2012.
  2. ^ Biographies of USSR / Russian Cosmonauts: Klimuk. Spacefacts.de. Retrieved on 4 August 2012.