Vladimir Mikhaylovich KomarovBorn 16 Mar 1927; died 24 Apr 1967 at age 40.Soviet cosmonaut who was the first man known to have died during a space mission. He flew on two space missions. He was Command Pilot of Voskhod I, on a day-long mission, 12-13 Oct 1964. Also on board were Dr. Yegorov, a medical doctor as flight physiologist; and the spacecraft engineer Konstantin Feoktistov. For this landing, the spacecraft's parachutes opened at an altitude of 7 km followed by a soft-landing system that used streams of gases from nozzles to reduce touchdown velocity to near zero. Komarov died during the landing after his second space mission, when he was Commander of Soyuz-I, 23-24 Apr 1967, on a nearly 27 hour flight. On its return, his spacecraft became entangled in its main parachute and fell several miles to Earth. |
