The Soyuz 1 disaster

The Soviets also had a setback in the spring of 1967 after they had been having problems with the attitude control thrusters of their Soyuz spacecraft. Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2 were to rendezvous and dock in an attempt to catch up with the achievements of the Gemini program.

The Soviet space program didn’t then have the sophisticated ground simulators and computerized test equipment which NASA used, relying heavily on test flights to find flaws in their equipment – and plenty of flaws were showing up. Phillip Clar was Britain’s leading observer of the Soviet space program and he noted: “Clearly Soyuz was not yet ready to carry men, and it is surprising that the test program was not slowed down as each unmanned test threw up new problems.” Aldrin:

When the Politburo ordered Chelomei and Mishin to prepare for a spectacular dual manned Soyuz mission for that April, Mishin, in an act of real integrity, refused the assignment. But he was eventually pressured into compliance. The Politburo wanted a dramatic mission that would equal all of Project Gemini’s achievements in a single stroke: the orbital maneuvering, rendezvous, and docking of two spacecraft, followed by the exciting space walk transfer of two crew members between the docked Soyuz spacecraft. Soviet leaders also demanded that the mission coincide as closely as possible with May Day, so they could celebrate “international solidarity” with Eastern bloc nations.

Test engineers fretted over the obvious design flaws in the new Soyuz, while a four‑man crew led by veterans Valery Bykovsky, the pilot of Vostok 5, and Vladimir Komarov, the commander of the Voskhod I mission, trained for the dual Soyuz 1 and 2 missions. Komarov would be launched alone aboard the first spacecraft, and Bykovsky and his two crewmates, Yevgeny Khrunov and Aleksey Yeliseyev orbited the next day aboard Soyuz 2. After rendezvous and docking, Khrunov and Yeliseyev would join Komarov aboard Soyuz 1 via a spectacular space walk, using the docked orbital modules as air locks. This dual flight would not only duplicate Gemini’s record of success, it would also demonstrate the Soviets’ capability for similar orbital maneuvers on a more ambitious Soyuz lunar flight.

Just before dawn on April 23, 1967, Colonel Komarov climbed aboard the Soyuz 1 spacecraft, mounted atop a large SL‑4 booster. At age 40, Komarov was one of the oldest cosmonauts and certainly the most technically qualified, with years of experience in flight‑test engineering. He had been a part of the manned Soviet spacecraft program from its inception and was considered its best‑qualified pilot. In addition, his broad shoulders and sharply molded Slavic features made him an ideal representative of this daring new Soviet venture. He had already demonstrated his courage and dedication to duty by commanding the risky Voskhod I mission.

The launch itself was normal, the large booster climbing away into the dawn over Kazakhstan. But as soon as the spacecraft was safely in orbit, serious malfunctions arose. The Soyuz spacecraft was equipped with two solar‑panel “wings” that would convert sunlight into electricity, but one panel did not deploy, drastically reducing the spacecraft’s power supply. Worse, Komarov began experiencing the same type of control‑thruster problems that had plagued the earlier unmanned test flights.

Soyuz 1 made no attempt to maneuver in orbit, despite the vehicle’s impressive propulsion system. Also, as we now know from Soviet sources, ground control in the Crimea lost the communications link with the spacecraft on several occasions, which indicates that the Soyuz 1 was tumbling so badly that Komarov couldn’t maintain antenna alignment. The original malfunction in the power supply may have affected the spacecraft’s guidance computer, its attitude control thrusters, or – most probably – both. Flight controllers scrubbed the Soyuz 2 countdown as soon as they realized that the first mission was in serious trouble. They had to concentrate on getting their cosmonaut back from space.

Komarov prepared for an emergency reentry with the crippled spacecraft. Mishin became increasingly anxious as Komarov and ground control struggled to align the Soyuz for the braking retrorocket burn as it passed northward across the equator above the Atlantic. On the sixteenth orbit, Komarov prepared for the burn, but it was cancelled when he couldn’t maintain stability. Ninety minutes later he tried again, but at the last moment the maneuver was stopped because of poor alignment. Komarov was in desperate trouble. He had probably exhausted the fuel not only from the Soyuz’s main thrusters on the instrument module, but also from the vital thrusters on the reentry module.

Komarov finally completed his retrorocket burn on the eighteenth orbit, even though he didn’t have sufficient fuel to steer the reentry module. Just after 3:00 am Greenwich time on April 24, Soyuz 1 plunged back into the atmosphere, spinning wildly; Komarov abandoned all attempts at a controlled reentry path for a normal touchdown near Tyuratam. The cosmonaut imparted a spin to the module that was probably a last‑ditch effort to keep the heat shield pointed along the flight path and prevent end‑over‑end tumbling, which would have incinerated the spacecraft.

The Soyuz module plunged on a ballistic trajectory almost 400 miles short of the designated landing zone, and Komarov was unable to stop the violent spin in the lower atmosphere. When he reached an altitude of about 30,000 feet, he deployed his small drogue parachute, which was quickly followed by the main chute. But the parachute lines fouled around the hot, spinning crown of the module, and his reserve parachute system also tangled.

There have been reports of questionable reliability that Western intelligence overheard Komarov’s last radio transmissions as his crippled reentry module plunged toward Earth. He reportedly screamed to his wife: “I love you and I love our baby!” But it’s unlikely the Soviets would have allowed a radio connection between the doomed cosmonaut and his wife that we eavesdropping imperialists could hear.

Komarov’s death was certainly instantaneous when the Soyuz module plunged into the steppes at several hundred miles an hour. The Soviets’ official announcement of the accident stunned the world, especially since they had broadcast just 12 hours before that Komarov’s flight was proceeding normally. According to Moscow, Komarov died “as a result of tangling of parachute cords as the spacecraft fell at a high velocity.”