Komarov Nearly Survived First Soyuz Reentry

Editor’s note: This is part two of a two-part story

by michael shinabery

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin may have been the first man in space, but Vladimir Komarov, born on March 16, 1927, was the first to die on a space mission.

“Some historians say Komarov was sent to space in a craft, Soyuz-1, which officials knew could never return,” the website io9.com declared.

Komarov knew his chances of survival were minimal. Apparently, so did everyone else in mission control. According to “Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8” (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998), “the flight director had Komarov’s wife Valentina brought to mission control so she and Komarov could have a last few precious minutes of private conversation.”

Bad luck seemed to dominate Komarov’s career. In 1960, a hernia operation nearly grounded him permanently. David Shayler, writing in “Disasters and Accidents in Manned Space Flight” (Springer-Praxis, 1981), said doctors temporarily grounded him in 1964 because of a heart murmur. That kept Komarov from flying what would have been his first mission, Vostok-4. Later that year, however, the doctors gave him thumbs-up to command Voskhod-1, the first three-man crew.

The Soyuz-1 mission made Komarov “the first of the Soviet Union’s 11 cosmonauts to make a second trip in space,” the June 1967 Sky and Telescope reported. Before he even launched on April 23, 1967, technicians had to correct 203 faults in the craft.

“These bad omens had a profound effect on Komarov, who was quiet and somber when preparing for the ride to the launch pad,” Shayler wrote. “He discussed his misgivings with fellow cosmonauts, and expressed a sense of foreboding about the mission.”

Once in orbit, complications continued.

“Soyuz-1’s control system failed,” stated an undated “Soviet Manned Space Program Fact Sheet.” In addition, “Genesis” said the craft’s thrusters “functioned only sporadically.” Communication with ground control was non-existent for seven orbits over nine hours of the 24-hour flight.

“According to the New York Times,” said Sky and Telescope, “Komarov tried to bring the Soyuz down on its 16th orbit, after 24 hours of flight, but was unable to place the ship in the proper attitude to fire the braking rockets. Finally, after circling the globe 18 times, the craft successfully reentered the atmosphere.”

Komarov initiated manual emergency landing procedures and miraculously survived the fiery reentry – only to have his parachute fail. “In a last ditch attempt to save his life,” “Genesis” said, he “deployed his reserve chute.” As gravity tugged at him and the Soyuz accelerated to 400 mph, the two chutes tangled. Komarov had just moments to live.

“Eyewitnesses said that they saw the capsule descend at great speed, with a trailing, twisting parachute,” said “Disasters and Accidents in Manned Space Flight.”

Then Soyuz hit ground.

“The capsule was … unrecognizable as the spacecraft it once was,” Shayler wrote. “The whole (impact) area was surrounded by a cloud of black smoke, and the fire inside the capsule wreckage was still intense, with molten metal still dripping onto the scorched ground.”

The United States, through NASA’s listening stations, heard the entire incident unfold.
“As he heads to his doom,” said NPR’s Robert Krulwich, quoted on io9.com, those at the listening posts “hear him crying in rage, ‘cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship.’”

The news agency Tass, Sky and Telescope said, reported the same day that Soviet officials “announced with great sorrow that Colonel-Engineer Vladimir Komarov, one of the first space explorers and talented tester of spaceships … perished tragically while completing the test flight of spaceship Soyuz-1.”

The Soviets collected and cremated Komarov’s remains, burying the ashes inside the Kremlin Wall in Moscow’s Red Square.

However, according to Shayler, the youth organization Young Pioneers found additional remains “several days” after the service. They “buried (them) at the site, providing Komarov with two burial places.”

There is evidence officials considered a rescue mission.

“American news services quoted speculations that a second ship was to have joined Soyuz-1 in orbit for the transfer of a spaceman from one craft to the other,” Sky and Telescope stated. “Genesis” put forth the plan was to launch a second Soyuz with three cosmonauts who would dock with Komarov.”

This never happened. An investigation found that not only were Komarov’s parachutes incorrectly packed, but so were those in the rescue Soyuz.

Komarov’s gruesome death happened just three months after the Apollo 1 fire killed three NASA astronauts.

“The lesson was clear: Risk plays no favorites and salutes no flag,” Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman wrote in “Countdown” (William Morrow, 1988).

In 1969, Borman met Komarov’s and Gagarin’s widows in Russia. The Soviets had named both cosmonauts “Heroes of the Soviet Union”; Komarov twice for the Voskhod and Soyuz missions. “Soviet Rocketry” tells how the widows gave their husband’s medals to Borman, who “in turn, passed (them) on to the Apollo 11 crew, who left them on the moon.”

Sidebar
The controversial Lost Cosmonaut debate, whether conspiracy theory or unsolved mystery, purports Yuri Gagarin was not the first person in space, nor was Vladimir Komarov the first to die on a mission.

On May 19, 1961, according to the website forteantimes.com, two brothers in Turin, Italy intercepted a radio signal from a female cosmonaut named “Ludmilla.” The 2008 story quoted her alleged transmission: “‘Talk to me! I am hot! I am hot!’” Fortean Times stated “the desperation in the woman’s voice was clear.” She reported she could “‘see a flame!’ ” and asked, “‘Am I going to crash?’” Shortly after the “signal went dead.”

Fortean Times described the brothers, ages 20 and 23, as “ingenious” and “radio-mad” who, in 1957, “hacked into both Russia’s and NASA’s space programmes (sic) so effectively that the Russians, it seems, may have wanted them dead.”

Michael Shinabery is an education specialist and humanities scholar at the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Reach him at [email protected].