Soyuz 1

Key facts

Mission & specifications

Mission

Soyuz 1 was the first flight of the spacecraft that would become the longest-serving in history — and it ended in the first death of the Space Age. On 23 April 1967 the Soviet Union launched the new Soyuz capsule with a single cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, a veteran who had commanded Voskhod 1. The mission was rushed. The Soyuz design was new and troubled, and the flight had been pushed forward, many believe, to stage a spectacular orbital docking in time for a political anniversary. Engineers had catalogued a long list of unresolved faults before launch; according to accounts that emerged later, the concerns were known but the flight went ahead anyway. In orbit the problems began at once. One of the two solar panels failed to deploy, starving the craft of power and unbalancing it; the automatic attitude control misbehaved, and Komarov struggled to steady the tumbling spacecraft. A planned second launch that would have docked with him was wisely cancelled. After a day of fighting the failing vehicle, he manually oriented the capsule and fired his engine to come home. He survived re-entry — and then the final, fatal failure struck: the main parachute did not open properly, and the reserve tangled with it. The descent module fell to the steppe of the southern Urals and was destroyed on impact. Komarov was killed, the first human to die during a spaceflight. His death forced an eighteen-month halt while the Soyuz was redesigned, and the parachute and control systems that failed him were fixed — making the spacecraft that followed, and which still flies today, far safer. Komarov is remembered with unusual poignancy: a small memorial listing the fallen of both nations was later left on the Moon by an American crew. He is honoured not for how he died but for facing a flight he reportedly knew was dangerous.

1. 1967A rushed launchLaunch

   Komarov flies the new, troubled Soyuz despite a long list of known faults.

2. 1967Trouble in orbitMilestone

   A solar panel fails to deploy and the control system misbehaves; the planned docking flight is cancelled.

3. 1967The parachute failsMission end

   Komarov re-enters, but the parachutes tangle; the capsule crashes and he becomes the first person to die during a spaceflight.

Images

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