ISS - Expedition 59 Mission patch / Russian Cosmonaut patch.
May 29, 2019
Shortly after beginning their spacewalk, Expedition 59 Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos recorded birthday greetings for the first person to spacewalk, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Leonov’s 85th birthday is tomorrow, Thursday, May 30.
Image above: At the start of today’s spacewalk, cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (left) and Alexey Ovchinin commemorated Russia’s first spacewalker Alexei Leonov, who turns 85 on Thursday, with signs attached to their Orlan spacesuits (see translations below). Image Credit: NASA.
See the video on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Space_Station/status/1133773154545876992
On 18 March, 1965, Leonov became the first person to leave a spacecraft in a spacesuit to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for a 12-minute spacewalk.
Alexey Leonov: First Human to Walk in Space
Kononenko and Ovchinin also added signs to the backs of their Orlon spacesuits to honor the first spacewalker. Kononenko’s suit with the red stripes bears a sign that says “1st spacewalker”, and the sign on Ovchinin’s suit with the blue stripes says, “Happy birthday, Alexei Arkhipovich,” Leonov’s family name.
Related links:
Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html
NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/live
Spacewalk: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/spacewalks/
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images, Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
