Pyotr Ivanovich Kolodin (russian: Пётр Иванович Колодин; 23 September 1930 – 4 February 2021) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

. Although he retired in 1983 without flying in space, Kolodin served non-flying assignments on several spaceflights.

Biography

Kolodin was born in Novovasilyevka,

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

(now in

Zaporizhia Oblast Zaporizhzhia Oblast ( uk, Запорі́зька о́бласть, translit=Zaporizka oblast), also referred to as Zaporizhzhia ( uk, Запорі́жжя, links=no), is an oblast (province) of southeast Ukraine. Its capital is Zaporizhzhia. Th ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

). In 1959, he graduated from Military Academy of Engineering and Radioengineering with gold medal. Kolodin then became an engineer-officer in the

Soviet Armed Forces The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and as the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and th ...

until his selection as a cosmonaut. He was selected as a Soviet cosmonaut as part of the TsPK Group 2 in 1963. He entered cosmonaut training in January 1963 and completed training in January 1966. After completing his training, Kolodin served non-flight (backup) roles on the

Voskhod 2 Voskhod 2 (russian: Восход-2, , ''Sunrise-2'') was a Soviet crewed space mission in March 1965. The Vostok-based Voskhod 3KD spacecraft with two crew members on board, Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov, was equipped with an inflatable a ...