BELYAYEV, PAVEL

born June 26, 1925, Chelishchevo, Russia, U.S.S.R. died Jan. 10, 1970, Moscow in full Pavel Ivanovich Belyayev cosmonaut who served as the pilot of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft during the Soviet Union's eighth manned space mission, launched March 18, 1965, the flight on which Aleksey Leonov, Belyayev's copilot, became the first man to walk in space. Belyayev began training as a fighter pilot in 1943 and saw combat against the Japanese late in World War II. After the war he remained in naval aviation. While attending the Soviet Air Force Academy, Moscow, in late 1959, he was selected for training as one of the original group of cosmonauts. For his part in the Voskhod 2 flight, he was proclaimed a Hero of the Soviet Union.