Anatoli Semyonovich Levchenko (born on May 5, 1941 in Krasnokutsk, Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast is an oblast in eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Russia to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west...

, USSR - August 6, 1988 in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, USSR) was a Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 cosmonaut.

Levchenko was planned to be the back-up commander of the first Buran space shuttle

Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

 flight, and in March 1987 he began extensive training for a Soyuz spaceflight, intended to give him some experience in space. In December 1987, he occupied the third seat aboard the spacecraft Soyuz TM-4

Soyuz TM-4

-Mission parameters:*Mass: 7070 kg*Perigee: 337 km*Apogee: 357 km*Inclination: 51.6°*Period: 91.5 minutes-Mission highlights:...

 to the space station

Space station

A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

 Mir

Mir

Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...

, and returned to Earth about a week later on Soyuz TM-3

Soyuz TM-3

-Mission parameters:*Mass: 7100 kg*Perigee: 297 km*Apogee: 353 km*Inclination: 51.6°*Period: 91.0 minutes...

. His mission is sometimes called Mir LII-1, after the Gromov Flight Research Institute

Gromov Flight Research Institute

M. M. Gromov Flight Research Institute or LII for short is an important Russian aircraft test base, scientific research center located in Zhukovsky, 40 km south-east of Moscow.It has one of the longest runways in Europe at 5,403 m...

 shorthand. In the year following his spaceflight, Levchenko died of a brain tumor

Brain tumor

A brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...

, in the Nikolay Burdenko Neurosurgical Institute in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

.

Selected as a cosmonaut on July 12, 1980. He was married with one child.