Soyuz 1: Russia's own space tragedy

[Jason Thompson]

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the tragic culmination of Soviet recklessness in spaceflight, as Vladimir Komarov becomes the first human to die in spaceflight, barely three months after NASA lost the Apollo 1 crew in a fire on the launch pad.

The Russian space program had seemed far ahead of NASA by 1965. They had launched the first satellite, the first animal in orbit, the first man in space. They had acheived flight duration records. They had launched the first three-man crew and performed the first spacewalk before NASA had even launched the first two-man Gemini spacecraft. But for two years, while NASA forged ahead with Gemini, shattering endurance records and running up their own tally of space firsts including rendezvous and docking, the USSR had remained oddly earthbound. Then, on April 23nd 1967, as NASA struggled with the death of the first Apollo crew, Soyuz 1 took to the skies. The following day, April 24th, the mission was unexpectedly cut short, and shortly afterwards the announcement was made that the pilot had died following re-entry.

What went wrong? It was not until many years later that the world became aware of just how much the Russian space program was geared towards making spectacular records rather than steady development. While they had amazed the world with their three-man Voskhod flight, it later emerged that Voskhod was simply a hastily redesigned Vostok capsule, with three couches crammed in place of a single ejector seat and no room for the crew to wear spacesuits. Soyuz, which would have been their three-man spacecraft, was at least a year from flight, so they took an apalling risk to launch three men in a modified Vostok. One of those men was Vladimir Komarov.

By 1967 they were well behind. Gemini had given NASA endurance records, EVA practice, rendezvous and docking, and many other benefits besides. If the Russians were to stay in the race they had to get off the ground again, and quickly. Soyuz 1 was rushed to be made ready for flight.

But it wasnt ready. Before launch over 200 flaws and problems were identified, any one of which could be disastrous. Vladimir Komarov, anecdotal evidence suggests, was sure he would not survive the flight, but took it on because he knew that Yuri Gagarin would be the next in rotation. He was unwilling to risk the life of a Hero of the Soviet Union by shirking his duties, as he saw them. He was launched into space, and almost immediately things went wrong. One solar panel refused to deploy, and the other was not enough on its own to supply power for the spacecraft. Powering down all non-essential systems, the Soyuz developed problems with the attitude control system and began to tumble in space. The planned Soyuz 2 launch, which would have carried three cosmonauts to a rendezvous and docking, with two of them crossing by EVA to Suyuz 1 for re-entry, was scrubbed and attention diverted to bringing Komarov down. It is reported that before re-entry his wife was brought to the space centre to speak to him, and, though his motion sickness, he bade her farewell. Then he performed the required procedures to slow the tumble, separate the re-entry module and return to Earth.

The capsule survived re-entry, but the relief was short-lived. A badly designed parachute compartment caused the main parachute to foul. It never deployed, the manually deployed reserve parachute tangled, and the capsule slammed into the ground so hard that, when they found the wreckage, it and its pilot were virtually unrecognisable. Vladimir Komarov, the first cosmonaut to fly in space a second time, was dead.

In a tragic mirror of Apollo 1, the resulting investigation and redesign resulted in a much improved Soyuz program. An inspection of the Soyuz 2 spacecraft showed the same problem with the parachute compartment. Had Soyuz 2 launched as well four cosmonauts could have been killed. The Soyuz spacecraft was redesigned and reworkd, and although it never made it to lunar flight, as had been intended, it became the workhorse of the Russian space program, and is still in use today.

[Andrew Curnow]

Again, another really interesting post, Jason. I know next to nothing about the various milestones and setbacks of the space race, and probably even less about what we've been doing post-moon landings, but I always find your posts on the subject very... well, for want of a better word, very educational. Thanks for posting that, even if it does reveal some unpleasant facts.

[Rob McCow]

Read this a while ago - just wanted to say that it was very interesting. Thanks for putting it up, Jason

[Jason Thompson]

I'm glad you both enjoyed it. What would you say to me making these space anniversary threads a regular thing? I like sharing the information, but I don't want to fill the board with things no-one is interested in.

[Rob McCow]

Perhaps it would sit better on The Vervoid, though most of the stuff on there is tele-visual/audio entertainment related.

I reckons keep them coming, but stick them on the same thread.

[WhiteCrow]

Whats really interesting about this is that this first step into space stations had a tragic end, and yet the Russians became the experts in it.

[MacNimon]

I'm glad you both enjoyed it. What would you say to me making these space anniversary threads a regular thing? I like sharing the information, but I don't want to fill the board with things no-one is interested in.

Keep them coming, Jason. I'm interested in this sort of thing myself, whether it be spaceflight-related or more generally astronomy-related. I just don't have time to trawl loads of websites myself at the moment, so it's a treat to find posts like these here on PS.

[Jason Thompson]

OK, when the next one rolls around I shall start a new thread and then all subsequent ones will be put in that thread. It'll mainly be for significant things like firsts or accidents. If I put a post for every space-related anniversary there'd probably be one every day!

[WhiteCrow]

OK, when the next one rolls around I shall start a new thread and then all subsequent ones will be put in that thread. It'll mainly be for significant things like firsts or accidents. If I put a post for every space-related anniversary there'd probably be one every day!

I dunno - it's like we really could do with our own separate science and technology area on the forum where these things and NASA discoveries etc could be posted.

[MacNimon]

I dunno - it's like we really could do with our own separate science and technology area on the forum where these things and NASA discoveries etc could be posted.

Also general thoughts on past space success stories and failures - anything from the Apollo lunar missions to the space shuttle and beyond, even the simple questions with almost uncomprehensible answers such as 'how big is the universe', current (and future) space missions, the Hubble space telescope etc....and that's just for starters! There's plenty worth talking about. Are there enough people interested in this stuff though to make such a thing viable?

[WhiteCrow]

Also general thoughts on past space success stories and failures - anything from the Apollo lunar missions to the space shuttle and beyond, even the simple questions with almost uncomprehensible answers such as 'how big is the universe', current (and future) space missions, the Hubble space telescope etc....and that's just for starters! There's plenty worth talking about. Are there enough people interested in this stuff though to make such a thing viable?

You should hope so - I mean I know on the whole, Star Trek fans tend to be more into science, and Who fans more into history.

There's almost always some kind of breakthrough in technology or science to report on. Although not as busy as some areas.