Was Gagarin the first in space? Or was he the first to return alive from orbit? Why are they still talking about the cosmonauts who died before him, and what mysteries of the first flights have only recently been declassified? 108 minutes that shocked the world - what were they worth? Read about this in the documentary investigation of the Moscow Trust TV channel.
First before Gagarin
November 10, 1959. A newspaper with sensational material is published in the USA. It contains a secret recording of conversations between the chief Soviet designer Sergei Korolev and the cosmonaut: “Earth. Pressure is normal.” After a minute of silence: “I can’t hear you, the batteries have failed. Oxygen. Comrades, for God’s sake, what to do? What? I can’t. Do you understand? Do you understand?” Then the astronaut’s speech turned into an indistinct muttering and disappeared completely. According to journalist Allen Henders, the deceased's name was Alexander Belokonev.
“As for Gagarin, there is no smoke without fire. There are some factors that allow rumors to emerge. We all know the canonical date of Gagarin’s flight – April 12, but before his flight there were five satellite ships on which the flight of the Vostok spacecraft was tested,” - said Vadim Lukashevich.
Andrey Simonov has been researching flight tests in our country for many years. He admits experiments in this industry have been going on since 1953.
Yuri Gagarin, 1961. Photo: ITAR-TASS
“Nobody wanted to show, imagine: the world’s first man in space, and suddenly death. It would be an even greater shame than if we fell behind. Therefore, we checked it down to the smallest detail so that there was a 100% guarantee of success.
On the eve of Gagarin's flight, the Daily Worker publishes an article from its Moscow correspondent. He reports: “On April 8, Vladimir Ilyushin, a test pilot, the son of a legendary aircraft designer, made an orbital flight on board the Rossiya spacecraft.” It is he who will be listed in the Guinness Book of Records for 1964 as the first cosmonaut on the planet,” comments Andrei Simonov.
“The Hungarian writer Eastwood Nemory wrote a whole book about how the first cosmonaut was Viktor Ilyushin, who survived, but was in unsightly shape after this unsuccessful landing,” said Yuri Karash.
The Italian agency "Continental", shortly after Gagarin's return, published an interview with its scientists, the Undico-Cordillo brothers, who said that since 1957 they had recorded three tragedies in space. In their space listening center, they picked up radio signals of the dying, groans and intermittent heartbeats. Those recordings still exist today.
“Initially, about 3,000 people were selected. They looked first of all at their medical records, that is, there was a requirement for almost absolute physical health. Of these, as a result of strict selection, 6 people were left who flew under the Vostok program. In fact, “Of course, more were selected,” adds Yuri Karash.
The last unofficial flight in the foreign press is listed as February 4, 1961. The Baikonur launch actually took place that day, but who flew? Why didn't you come back? The details remained classified for many years.
Why did cosmonaut Bondarenko die?
The West is convinced that Gagarin only played the role of the first cosmonaut to hide his failures.
“Before Gagarin’s flight, the Americans were also working on their Mercury spacecraft, they had two suborbital launches, they managed to launch them. The rhesus monkey Sam flew in the first, and the first astronaut, the chimpanzee Ham, flew in the second. He flew two months before Gagarin, he rose to a height of 285 km vertically. Perhaps that is why Korolev began to say that there was no point in launching Gagarin suborbitally, it was necessary to immediately make a full orbit. Otherwise he would have been second behind the monkey. Therefore, the race was neck and neck," said Vadim Lukashevich.
Today, astronauts acknowledge the death of one of their colleagues. This really happened before Gagarin, and they don’t like to talk about it. Valentin Bondarenko was one of the favorites of the first squad - the youngest and most cheerful. Pilot-cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko was friends with him, but even he admits that he died through his own fault.
"We heated food and tea on ordinary spiral tiles. We wiped his head for sensors with alcohol, and an alcohol swab accidentally fell on the tile - he was getting ready to have dinner. A fire occurred, he had 80% burns, he was taken away in an ambulance, but he I lived only two or three hours,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.
Yuri Gagarin before the start. Photo: ITAR-TASS
Gagarin could not say goodbye to Bondarenko, he is called to the start. There is a battle for space. Before sending Yuri Gagarin into flight, he and his backup, German Titov, are brought to the cosmodrome twice. They work out to the smallest detail everything that can be done on Earth, and for real: in spacesuits, with a report, with negotiations.
“They rehearsed the landing, reported, they were taken in an elevator to the very top, to the ship. Everything was done except boarding the ship. That is, a large retinue: conscript soldiers standing in a cordon saw that the cosmonauts reported, went to the rocket, rocket flew away,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
This is how rumors are born. They are also fueled by kitchen conversations of dissidents who do not trust the authorities.
“Once I was in Italy, those who proved that Gagarin and Tereshkova were not the first gathered there,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.
Late 70s Almost twenty years after Gagarin's flight. Cosmonauts can already divulge some details of the first launches. Then Viktor Gorbatko says for the first time that Valentin Bondarenko died not in space, but in a soundproofing chamber during a test. But those radio signals that the Italian brothers heard really existed, and they came from space.
“Radio transmitters were taken on board. They simply recorded the voice and watched how the signal would pass to Earth. There were simple call signs: “Reception!”, “Can you hear me?”, etc. Western pilots, having heard this, might well have thought “that a person is saying this, although in fact it was a tape recorder speaking,” said Andrei Simonov.
Human trials
So was astronaut number zero, and who are the people whose names were named by the largest foreign publications? Why did they believe in them so much? Was Gagarin the first, second or twelfth cosmonaut in the world? The first journalistic investigation appeared in the summer of 1965.
“In American publications - Belokonev, Ledovsky, Shiborin, Gusev, Zavadovsky also flew before Gagarin - a lot of names were given. And it turned out that in 1959 in the Ogonyok magazine there was a detailed publication where testers of spacesuits for pilots, not for cosmonauts, were interviewed And they said that they were testing high-altitude spacesuits. And so the Americans took the names of people from this group and passed them off as astronauts.
But questions remain. What really happened to Vladimir Ilyushin?" said Andrei Simonov.
“He was a very unique person. In 1959, he set a world altitude record for flying an airplane, a lot was written about him. And then in 1960 he suddenly disappeared from view. Everything was simple: on June 8, 1960, he got into a car accident on the way from Moscow to Zhukovsky, and was treated for a long time. This year he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and he came on crutches to the presentation. And, apparently, someone saw, and gossip began to spread that he had an unsuccessful flight into space. Although he “I myself have always denied this,” recalls Simonov.
Yuri Gagarin in the Grand Kremlin Palace, 1961. Photo: ITAR-TASS
Evgeny Kiryushin is also one of those who was named among the dead cosmonauts. His friends heard about this on a foreign radio station.
"Someone randomly asked me: 'Oh! Are you alive? “I heard you died” - “No, I say, you’re alive!” said Evgeny Kiryushin.
Kiryushin was one of those who did everything to prevent the cosmonauts from dying. For more than 20 years, he was officially listed as either a simple laboratory assistant or a mechanic at the Institute of Space Medicine. Only in the early 1990s did it become possible to speak out loud about his work, and he received the title of Hero of Russia.
“Let’s say, explosive decompression, when they checked the suit for an explosion - a fraction of a second passes until complete depressurization, from earth pressure to vacuum - three tenths of a second. God knows what can happen: maybe lightning will tear off, maybe the helmet, and maybe the head ", explained Kiryushin.
There are countless tragedies among the testers; not many can withstand twelve-fold overloads and emergency ejection. A common injury is a spinal fracture. Until the very end, no one knows how a person will behave in space. It is believed that in a state of weightlessness he will simply go crazy. Gagarin's entire ship control panel is blocked. The code is in a special envelope; a deranged pilot will not be able to decipher it. Until the last minute, the success of the flight is in doubt.
“After the Second World War, the International Commission banned experiments and tests on people. But how can you develop such a new industry as astronautics without conducting experiments with people? This is impossible, therefore, despite all sorts of international acts, we had a group of testers who did this.” , - said Evgeny Kiryushin.
Vadim Lukashevich has written more than one book about astronautics. He believes that the Americans, by spreading rumors about Soviet launch failures, did not want to belittle the achievements of the Soviet country. On the contrary, they were frightened by such information. During the Cold War, they kept a close eye on the Russians. For meetings in the US Congress on the budget, the Pentagon even published a special brochure “Soviet Military Power”.
"The West then accepted very little information about the Soviet Union. To the point that they would not say where we started from. We started from Chuo Tama, but they said that from Baikonur, and this is hundreds of kilometers away. And the Americans recognized the launch site from ballistic calculations, looking at where the rocket took off from. Gagarin is the first person in space, but according to the rules of the international association, in order to register a record, he had to take off in a ship and land in a ship. And he ejected at an altitude of 80 km and landed on a parachute separately, but when we submitted documents to register the record, we hid it. That is, they thought up a lot of things,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
Death of Ivan Ivanovich
Larisa Uspenskaya knows the secrets of space flight like no one else. For many years she has been in charge of the archive of the first cosmonaut corps. Unique, recently closed documents are stored here.
“In 2011, when celebrations and anniversary events took place, a massive declassification of documents was carried out. Documents from the archives of the president, the state authorities at that time and our department were declassified. Recently, a non-departmental commission declassified a significant block of archives relating to the first space flights,” said Larisa Uspenskaya .
The very first recordings of the archive of Gagarin's flight were made in real time by Korolev and the cosmonaut personally immediately after landing. Gagarin writes how he lost his pencil in weightlessness, how he was thirsty, how the ship deviated from course.
Designer Sergei Korolev and first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, 1961. Photo: ITAR-TASS
“The Americans took direction finding of Gagarin’s negotiations with the Earth during the flight and woke up the president that the race was lost,” said Vadim Lukashevich.
Meanwhile, three weeks earlier, a resident of the village of Korsha, in Western Kazakhstan, discovered a man in a spacesuit on a high spruce tree - he landed unsuccessfully with a parachute. The news about the deceased cosmonaut quickly spread around the area. But no one had time to get close to him: the military arrived and the victim disappeared without a trace.
“We can only call the dummy Ivan Ivanovich as cosmonaut number zero. It was absolutely impossible to imagine how the human body would react. The overloads that the astronauts were subjected to during training and testing on Earth could not compare with what would happen there,” said Larisa Uspenskaya .
Officially, two dummies flew into space, jokingly nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich by the designers. In order not to scare people, they will write on the suit of the second one: “Model”. But it was impossible to stop the rumors.
“It was only fifty years later that the UN established that April 12, 1961 is the day of the first human flight into space,” said Viktor Gorbatko.
Today, for $1 million, anyone can go into space. But has it become safe? What are astronauts still hiding?
“I was worried, of course, but there was no fear. Unfortunately, the previous crew, when we flew to Almaz (the Salyut-5 military station), panicked, they began to take things more and more acutely, which caused a deterioration in their health, and this led to an emergency landing, and for some time it was even believed that the station was poisoned.
Only behind the scenes, testers say that the risk in flights has not disappeared. It's still roulette, which is why they sign non-disclosure documents. Their reports are kept as secret files for years.
“As a result of each flight, not counting TASS reports, a whole complex of documents arises. For example, Gagarin’s flight log has not yet been published. What do we know about the flights after Gagarin?” - Vadim Lukashevich argues.
It would seem that the veil of secrecy of the first flights has been lifted, and except for dogs and mannequins, no one had been in orbit before Gagarin, but until all the documents are declassified, these questions will be investigated again and again.
Major Gagarin completed the task. After him, Viktor Gorbatko managed to travel into space three times, each time the mission was made more difficult.
“Plains, forests, all this can be seen from space. On my second flight, taking the appropriate equipment, we could see a person,” recalls Viktor Gorbatko.
began long before man was there. Many people remember those times when seeing planet Earth or visiting the Moon was something out of the world of science fiction. Today, every schoolchild knows the date April 12, 1961 - first man's flight into space. This event, which was watched by the whole world, is associated with the name of the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin; his flight lasted 108 minutes.
This was a colossal success for Soviet scientists, the beginning of the history of mastering the territory of weightlessness, the whole country was waiting for Gagarin’s triumphant return home. After all, no matter how well the astronaut was prepared, no one knew what exactly was happening outside our planet. Year of the first flight into space knows the whole world, and April 12 has since become an official holiday.
The history of space exploration is the most striking example of the triumph of the human mind over once unruly matter. The first object that was able to fly into Earth’s orbit took 50 years to create by the standards of historical chronicles, which is quite a bit. Before made the first flight into space Yuri Gagarin, the textbook Belka and Strelka, whose return no one expected, have already been there. But it took place, and the shaggy ones returned home.
The flight took place in August 1960 on the fifth satellite; in one day the animals managed to fly around the planet 17 times. It was no coincidence that they chose white dogs - the image on the screens was black and white, so contrast was required to observe the behavior of Belka and Strelka. They developed a special system for training dogs; they had to get used to wearing a vest and calmly respond to surveillance sensors. Most of all, scientists were concerned about how the state of weightlessness would affect the body, and it was impossible to answer this question while on Earth. This honorable task faced the shaggy cosmonauts.
After 8 months it was completed first manned flight into space. Immediately before Gagarin, in March, a dog named Zvezdochka flew there. Future cosmonauts were also present at the launch of the ship to make sure that the object was completely ready for a safe human flight. Senior Lieutenant Gagarin also studied the technique. After it took place first manned space flight every year new discoveries were made.
It must be said that Belka and Strelka and Yuri Gagarin are far from the first living beings to conquer the territory of weightlessness. Before that, the dog Laika visited there, whose flight was prepared for 10 years and ended sadly - she died. Turtles, mice, and monkeys have also flown into space. The most striking flights, and there were only three of them, were made by a dog named Zhulka. Twice she launched on high-altitude rockets, the third - on a ship, which turned out to be not so perfect and suffered technical failures. The ship could not reach orbit, and a decision was considered to destroy it.
But again there are problems in the system, and the ship returns home prematurely and falls. The satellite was discovered in Siberia. No one hoped for a successful outcome of the search, not to mention the dog. But after surviving a terrible accident, hunger and thirst, Zhulka was saved and lived for another 14 years after the fall.
Gagarin in space. How it was
Day April 12, 1961 - began first flights into space man, it became a milestone and divided the history of the exploration of weightless space into two periods - when man only dreamed of stars and the time of conquest of the “dark” territory. Gagarin started as a senior lieutenant and landed with the new rank of major. Baikonur Cosmodrome, launch pad No. 1, at exactly 9:07 Moscow time, the Vostok-1 spacecraft set off with the first person on board. It took 90 minutes to fly around planet Earth and cover 41 thousand km.
Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space took place, he landed near Saratov and since then he has become one of the most revered and famous people on the Planet. It must be said that the astronaut had to experience a lot during the flight, he was well prepared, but even the most approximate conditions at home during training cannot be compared with what actually happened. The ship tumbled repeatedly, had to endure a lot of overloads, and there were system failures, but everything ended well. Thus, the Soviet Union won the space race with the United States.
The first manned flight into space: the most interesting things
A simple Soviet guy, Yuri Gagarin, accomplished a real feat, it was he who accomplished first flight into space this brought real success to the young man, now he will remain forever in the hearts of people with his famous “Let's go!” and a wide, kind smile. Do we know everything about this flight? There are many facts that were carefully hidden from the Soviet public until recently.
- Valentin Bondarenko could have become the first cosmonaut, but literally two weeks before the launch of the spacecraft, he died during a fire in a pressure chamber.
- Before entering the Earth's atmosphere, there was a failure in the automation responsible for separating the compartments, so the ship tumbled for 10 minutes.
- The landing in the Saratov region was not planned; Gagarin missed the target by 2800 km. The first people to meet the astronaut were the wife and daughter of a local forester.
- When selecting dogs for space flight, preference was given exclusively to females, since they did not raise their legs when relieving themselves.
- Gagarin's first flight into space could have ended tragically, so he wrote his wife a farewell letter, in case he did not return. Therefore, it was given away not in 1961, but in 1968 after a plane crash in which the astronaut died.
German Titov was much better physically prepared for the flight, but the charisma of his competitor played a key role here. Despite the fact that the Americans tried in every possible way to assign the title of discoverer to themselves and disputed year of the first manned space flight, arguing that they were there before, all their judgments are unfounded.
Russia-USSR became the first space power! And continues to be today!
For as long as I can remember, everyone knew the names of the cosmonauts; these were the main heroes - as they would now say “superman” - of the peaceful Soviet era.
During the flights, all radio and television broadcasts were interrupted, the brilliant Levitan solemnly announced the new flight, then the newspapers printed photos of the new cosmonauts on the front pages.
Belka and Strelka also flew long before I was born, but for some reason I knew them too.
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Space flights became a routine somewhere in the second half of the 70s.
Before interest waned, the last “spike” was Soyuz-Apollo. In Omsk, the live broadcast of the docking of the American and Soviet ships was at night, I remember it in a dream, I was woken up by my cousin (10 years older than me), he did not sleep, he really wanted to see this historical event.
Then the cosmonaut corps was replenished with new faces, there were many cosmonauts, and not everyone knew them anymore. Flights with cosmonauts from socialist countries were more “promoted”.
But everyone knew the first ones!
The first cosmonauts of the USSR
Cosmonaut No. 1 - Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin (1934 - 1968)
Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), fighter pilot, first space flight:
April 12, 1961 "East".
Died on March 27, 1968 in a plane crash.
Gagarin's funeral
The historic flight of Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin took place on the morning of April 12, 1961.
The Vostok spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and, having flown once around the Earth, landed in the Saratov region.
Moreover, Gagarin ejected and landed with a parachute.
Cosmonaut No. 2 German Stepanovich Titov (1935 - 2000)
German Stepanovich Titov (1935-2000), air defense pilot, one space flight: August 6, 1961 Vostok-2. Left the cosmonaut corps on June 17, 1970.
Later he worked at the Space Research Institute.
Cosmonaut No. 3 Andrian Grigorievich Nikolaev (1929 -2004)
Andriyan Grigorievich Nikolaev (1929-2004), air defense pilot, two space flights: August 11, 1962 Vostok-3; June 1, 1970 Soyuz-9. Left the cosmonaut corps on January 26, 1982.
Cosmonaut No. 4 Pavel Romanovich Popovich (1930 - 2009)
Pavel Romanovich Popovich (1930-2009), Air Force pilot, two space flights: August 12, 1962 Vostok-4; July 3, 1974 Soyuz-14. Left the cosmonaut corps on January 26, 1982.
Cosmonaut No. 5 - Valery Fedorovich Bykovsky (1934)
Valery Fedorovich Bykovsky (1934), Air Force pilot, three space flights: June 14, 1963 Vostok-5; September 15, 1976 Soyuz-22; August 26, 1978 Soyuz-31. Left the cosmonaut corps on January 26, 1982.
Cosmonaut No. 6 - The first female cosmonaut - Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born 1937)
Space flight June 16, 1963, Vostok-6, at the same time Vostok-5 was in orbit, piloted by pilot cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky.
Cosmonaut No. 7. Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov
Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov (1927-1967), Air Force pilot-engineer, two space flights: October 12, 1964 “Voskhod”;
April 23, 1967 Soyuz-1. April 24, 1967 Vladimir Komarov died during landing after a flight on the Soyuz-1 spacecraft. (Yu.A. Gagarin was appointed as his backup for this flight).
We have a book about Komarov at home.
On October 12, 1964, the world's first multi-seat spacecraft flew into space. For the first time, the crew included not only a pilot, but also an engineer and a doctor.
For the first time in history, the crew flew without spacesuits.
The soft landing system was used for the first time. The call sign “Rubin” sounded from orbit for 24 hours. The total flight duration was one day and 17 minutes, during which time the ship circled the globe 16 times.
Cosmonaut No. 8. Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov
Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (1926 - 2009), pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, research fellow-cosmonaut of the Voskhod spacecraft, 8th cosmonaut of the USSR and 12th cosmonaut of the world, Doctor of Technical Sciences.
K. P. Feoktistov was the first civilian cosmonaut and the only non-partisan in the history of Soviet cosmonautics to have completed a space flight.
Participant of the Great Patriotic War since 1941. He fought in the infantry and was a scout. In 1942 he was captured by the Germans and shot, but remained alive.
During the Great Patriotic War, Feoktistov dropped out of school and went to the front. He fought as a reconnaissance officer in a military unit. While carrying out reconnaissance in the city of Voronezh, Feoktistov was captured by a German patrol and miraculously survived the execution:
After graduating from Moscow Higher Technical School in 1949, he worked at NII-1 in the group of M.K. Tikhonravov, then at OKB-1 (now NPO Energia).
Participated in the development of the first artificial Earth satellite, the spacecraft Vostok, Soyuz, Soyuz T, Soyuz TM, Progress, Progress-M, and the Salyut and Mir orbital stations.
Member of the cosmonaut corps since 1964. On October 12-13, 1964, he flew into space on the Voskhod-1 spacecraft.
Cosmonaut No. 9 Boris Borisovich Egorov
Boris Borisovich Egorov (1937 - 1994). The doctor is an astronaut.Made one flight on the multi-seat ship "Voskhod 1", lasting 1 day 0 hours 17 minutes 3 seconds.
Later he worked at the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems on the problems of weightlessness.
Doctor of Medical Sciences.
Cosmonaut No. 10 Pavel Ivanovich Belyaev
Belyaev Pavel Ivanovich (1925-1970), naval aviation pilot, one space pilot
flight: piloted March 18, 1965 Voskhod-2.
He graduated from the Yeisk Military Aviation School of Pilots in 1945, and took part in the Soviet-Japanese War in August-September 1945.
When landing the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, due to deviations in the operation of the ship's orientation system to the Sun, P. I. Belyaev manually oriented the ship and turned on the braking engine. These operations were performed for the first time in the world.
As a result, Voskhod landed in an off-design area 180 km north of the city of Perm. The TASS report called this a landing in a “reserve area,” which was actually the remote Perm taiga.
The astronauts had to spend two nights alone in the wild forest in severe frost. Only on the third day did rescuers make their way through the deep snow on skis, who were forced to cut down the forest in the Voskhod landing area in order to clear the landing area for the helicopter.
Flight duration - 1 day 2 hours 2 minutes 17 seconds.
Cosmonaut No. 11. Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov.
The world's first spacewalk.
Alexey Leonov (1934), Air Force pilot, two space flights: March 18, 1965 Voskhod-2; July 15, 1975 Soyuz-19. Left the cosmonaut corps on January 26, 1982.
Leonov made the first in history astronautics spacewalk lasting 12 minutes 9 seconds. During the exit he showed exceptional courage, especially in an emergency situation when a swollen space suit prevented the astronaut from returning to the spacecraft. Leonov managed to enter the airlock only by releasing excess pressure from the suit, while he climbed into the ship's hatch not with his feet, but with his head first, which was prohibited by the instructions.
In 1975, July 15-21, Leonov, together with V.N. Kubasov, made his second flight into space as commander of the Soyuz-19 spacecraft under the ASTP program (another frequently mentioned name of the program is Soyuz-Apollo). .
A.A. Leonov is the author of about 200 paintings and 5 art albums, including magnificent cosmic landscapes, science fiction, earthly landscapes, portraits of friends (watercolor, oil, Dutch gouache).
April 15 is the birthday of USSR pilot-cosmonaut No. 12 Georgy Timofeevich Beregovoy.
Georgy Timofeevich Beregovoi
born on April 15, 1921 in the Ukrainian village of Fedorovka, Poltava province. He spent his childhood and youth in the city of Yenakievo. It was here that he graduated from school, took his first steps in his career as an electrician at the Yenakievo Metallurgical Plant, and here he first took to the air as a cadet at the Yenakievo Aero Club.
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Georgy Beregovoy was a fully trained attack pilot. Fate protected him, although during the war years the brave pilot had to repeatedly look death in the face. He ended the war as a Hero of the Soviet Union.
After the war, he successfully completed the higher officer courses for test pilots. He worked as a test pilot of the USSR, receiving the title of Honored Test Pilot of the USSR in 1961, and in 1963 he achieved enrollment in the cosmonaut corps, despite his age.
Having completed a full course of training for flights on Soyuz-class ships, October 26 -30, 1968 - at the age of 47! - made a space flight on the Soyuz-3 spacecraft. The flight included the first ever attempt to dock with an unmanned Soyuz-2 spacecraft in the shadow of the Earth. The flight lasted 3 days 22 hours 50 minutes 45 seconds. For completing a space flight on November 1, 1968, he was awarded the second Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
Having survived the war without serious injuries, he almost died in peacetime: on January 22, 1969, in the Kremlin, during a ceremonial meeting of cosmonauts, officer Viktor Ilyin fired at the car in which Beregovoi was driving, mistaking it for Brezhnev’s car. Beregovoy’s slight external resemblance to Brezhnev also contributed to the mistake. The driver behind the wheel was mortally wounded, and Beregovoy received minor injuries from fragments of the windshield.
After the space flight, Aviation Lieutenant General Beregovoy worked for a long time as the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center and trained a whole generation of space Argonauts. He retired in 1987 with the rank of lieutenant general. But he continued active public work as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Georgy Beregovoy died on June 30, 1995 during heart surgery. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Thanks for the info:
The first group space flight was carried out by cosmonauts Andriyan Grigorievich Nikolaev on the Vostok-3 spacecraft and Pavel Romanovich Popovich on the Vostok-4 spacecraft.
Vostok-3 was launched on August 11, 1962 at 11:30 a.m., and Vostok-4 was launched on August 12, 1962 at 11:02 a.m.
During the flight, radio communication was maintained between the ships and the Earth. For the first time, TV images of astronauts were transmitted to Earth, broadcast on the USSR television network and Intervision. During the flight, the astronauts were freed from the ejection seats and floated freely in the cabin under zero-gravity conditions; medical and biological experiments were carried out. One of the tasks of the joint flight of the two ships was a military experiment in the program to create a satellite interceptor, with Vostok-3 playing the role of a target, and Vostok-4, launched after it, as an interceptor.
During this flight, a new flight duration record was set (for that time) - 94 hours 22 minutes.
Due to the great accuracy in placing both ships into orbit, the parameters of their orbits were almost identical, the maximum approach of the ships was about 6.5 km. During the flight, the astronauts could visually observe each other's ships.
This was the world's first group space flight of two manned Soviet satellites Vostok-3 and Vostok-4. Space began to be actively explored, some objective data had already been obtained, but at the same time new problems and tasks appeared. Cosmonauts Nikolaev and Popovich had to carry out a lot of research and experiments related to solving new medical-biological and scientific-technical problems: studying the influence of long-term space flight and especially the state of weightlessness on the basic physiological functions of humans; elucidation of the peculiarities of the daily periodicity of physiological processes during a long orbital flight around the Earth; assessment of the psychological state and performance of astronauts at various stages of the flight; determining the effectiveness of methods for selecting and training cosmonauts; testing the capabilities of coordinated actions of two crews in flight and the efficiency of all structural elements of spacecraft, especially life support systems. All this was important for solving promising problems of increasing flight duration, for creating long-term orbital stations, etc.
During the group flight, the operation of all onboard systems of the spacecraft was also checked, radio communications were established between each other and with ground stations, psychological, physiological and vestibular tests were performed, medical self-monitoring was carried out (pulse, respiratory rate, tolerance to overload, noise, vibration, weightlessness), orientation of ships in space using manual control systems, filming, etc.
August 15, 1962 on A.G. Nikolaev landed at 9:52 a.m. near the city of Karkaralinsk, Karaganda region. And at 9:59 a.m., Popovich also landed near the village of Atasu, Karaganda region. Both cosmonauts, as well as the Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 spacecraft, landed, as planned in the flight program, in Kazakhstan.
A.G. Nikolaev and P.R. Popovich set the first world records for the duration and range of a group space flight in the class of orbital flights. Their flight showed that it is possible to fly on Vostok-type spacecraft for a long time.
On this flight, for the first time, the cosmonauts were freed from their seat belts, separated from the seat and were in “free floating” (in zero gravity).
For the first time in our country and in most European countries, through Soviet television channels and through Intervision systems, we observed the astronauts swimming inside the cabin, we saw how both cosmonauts made observations, maintained radio contact with the Earth, and also carried out orientation of the spacecraft.
This flight made it possible to outline even more complex and lengthy space flights.
About astronauts
Pavel Romanovich Popovich born in 1930 in the small town of Uzin, Belotserkovsky district, Kyiv region, Ukraine. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union.
Born into a simple working-class family. He graduated from the Magnitogorsk Industrial College and at the same time the Magnitogorsk Aero Club, then the Military Aviation School, and the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. After graduating from college, he served in Air Force units.
Member of the cosmonaut corps since 1960.
ABOUT his first flight ETC. Popovich (group flight with A.G. Nikolaev) we described in this article.
Second flight Popovich went into space on July 3 - 19, 1974 on the Soyuz-14 spacecraft as commander of the first crew (together with flight engineer Yu. P. Artyukhin) to the first military orbital station of the Almaz program. On July 5, the ship docked with the Salyut-3 station, which had been in orbit since June 25. The joint flight lasted 15 days. During the flight, the cosmonauts examined geological and morphological objects of the earth's surface, atmospheric formations and phenomena, physical characteristics of outer space, conducted medical and biological research to study the influence of flight factors on the human body and determine rational operating modes on board the station. Using the latest camera with powerful optics, the astronauts received many photographs of military facilities, invaluable data for the Ministry of Defense.
There were several flights that Popovich was preparing for that failed for various reasons.
After the end of P.R.’s space activities. Popovich was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for 24 years, and was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR for six convocations.
Since 1993 - Major General of Aviation in the reserve. Until September 2009, Pavel Romanovich worked as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the State Institute of Land Cadastral Surveys-VISKHAGI (Moscow).
He died in 2009 in Gurzuf from a stroke, and was buried in Moscow, at the Troekurovsky cemetery.
Family
First wife - Marina Lavrentievna Popovich. Military test pilot 1st class, colonel engineer. Vice-President of the International Center of the Roerichs.
Daughters: Natalya Pavlovna (b. 1956) and Oksana Pavlovna (b. 1968). Both daughters graduated from MGIMO.
Granddaughters Tatiana and Alexandra and grandson Michael.
Second wife- Alevtina Fedorovna Popovich.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Cosmonaut No. 1. On April 12, 1961, as a pilot of the Vostok spacecraft, he made the first space flight in history. The flight duration was 108 minutes.
German Stepanovich Titov
Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. From August 6 to 7, 1961, as a pilot of the Vostok-2 spacecraft, he performed the world's first space flight lasting more than a day. The flight duration was 1 day 01 hour 18 minutes.
Andriyan Grigorievich Nikolaev
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made two flights into space. The first - from August 11 to 15, 1962, as a pilot of the Vostok-3 spacecraft, he performed a joint flight with the Vostok-4 spacecraft, piloted by Pavel Popovich. The flight duration was 3 days 22 hours 22 minutes. The second - from June 1 to June 18, 1970 as commander of the Soyuz-9 spacecraft. The flight duration was 17 days 16 hours 58 minutes 55 seconds.
Pavel Romanovich Popovich
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made two flights into space. The first - from August 12 to 15, 1962 as a pilot of the Vostok-4 spacecraft. The flight duration was 2 days 22 hours 56 minutes. The second - from July 3 to July 19, 1974 as commander of the Soyuz-14 spacecraft. The flight duration was 15 days 17 hours 30 minutes 28 seconds.
Valery Fedorovich Bykovsky
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He made three flights into space: from June 14 to 19, 1963 as a pilot of the Vostok-5 spacecraft, from September 15 to 23, 1976 as commander of the Soyuz-22 spacecraft, from August 26 to September 3, 1978 as commander of the Soviet-German crew. Flight duration is 20 days 17 hours 48 minutes 21 seconds.
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova
Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. The world's first female astronaut. She made a space flight on June 16 - 19, 1963 as commander of the Vostok-6 spacecraft under the group flight program with the Vostok-5 spacecraft, piloted by Valery Bykovsky. The flight duration was 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes.
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Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. The first flight into space was from October 12 to 13, 1964 as the commander of the Voskhod spacecraft, together with Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Egorov, the second was from April 23 to 24, 1967 as the commander of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft. Flight duration is 2 days 3 hours 4 minutes 55 seconds.
Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov
Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He traveled to space from October 12 to 13, 1964 as a cosmonaut - a researcher at the Voskhod spacecraft, together with Vladimir Komarov and Boris Egorov. The flight duration was 1 day 0 hours 17 minutes 3 seconds.
Boris Borisovich Egorov
Hero of the Soviet Union. Doctor-astronaut. From October 12 to 13, 1964, as a cosmonaut - doctor for the crew of the Voskhod spacecraft, he flew together with Vladimir Komarov and Konstantin Feoktistov. The flight duration was 1 day 0 hours 17 minutes 3 seconds.
Pavel Ivanovich Belyaev
Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He was in space from March 18 to 19, 1965 as the commander of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft together with Alexei Leonov, who during the flight made the world's first spacewalk. The flight duration was 1 day 2 hours 2 minutes 17 seconds.
Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. The first person in the world to perform a spacewalk lasting 23 minutes 41 seconds (of which 12 minutes 9 seconds outside the ship, moving 5.35 meters away from the ship). The duration of space flights is 7 days 0 hours 33 minutes 8 seconds.
Georgy Timofeevich Beregovoi
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. From October 26 to October 30, 1968, he flew as commander-pilot of the Soyuz-3 spacecraft. The main task of the flight, docking with the unmanned Soyuz-2 spacecraft, could not be completed. The ships approached twice at a distance of up to 30 meters, after which the automation took the ships to the sides. The flight duration was 3 days 22 hours 50 minutes 45 seconds.
Boris Valentinovich Volynov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made 2 flights into space. From January 15 to 18, 1969 as commander of the Soyuz-5 spacecraft. He launched together with A. Eliseev and E. Khrunov, who, after the world's first docking of two manned spacecraft, crossed through outer space to the Soyuz-4 spacecraft. Landing was carried out alone. Second flight - from July 6 to August 24, 1976 as commander of the Soyuz-21 spacecraft. Flight duration - 52 days 7 hours 17 minutes 47 seconds.
Alexey Stanislavovich Eliseev
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made 3 flights into space with a total duration of 8 days 22 hours 22 minutes 33 seconds. Spent 37 minutes in outer space. During the third flight (from April 23 to April 25, 1971, as a flight engineer of the Soyuz-10 spacecraft), the world's first docking of a spacecraft with the Salyut orbital station was performed.
Evgeny Vasilievich Khrunov
Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He was in space from January 15 to 17, 1969 as a research engineer on the Soyuz-5 spacecraft. The flight duration was 1 day 23 hours 45 minutes 50 seconds.
Anatoly Vasilievich Filipchenko
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He made 2 flights into space: from October 12 to 17, 1969 as commander of the Soyuz-7 spacecraft and from December 2 to 8, 1974 as commander of the Soyuz-16 spacecraft. Flight duration is 10 days 21 hours 3 minutes 58 seconds.
Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made 2 flights into space with a total duration of 28 days 17 hours 02 minutes 6 seconds. During the return of the crew consisting of V. Volkov, G. Dobrovolsky and V. Patsaev to Earth after the second flight on the night of June 30, 1971, the Soyuz-11 descent module depressurized and the cosmonauts died.
Vitaly Ivanovich Sevastyanov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR. First flight - from July 1 to July 19, 1970 as a flight engineer of the Soyuz-9 spacecraft together with Andriyan Nikolaev. The crew set a new world record for flight duration. Second - From May 24 to July 26, 1975 as a flight engineer of the Soyuz-18 spacecraft and the Salyut-4 OS. Spent 80 days 16 hours 19 minutes 3 seconds in space.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Rukavishnikov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. Made 3 flights into space with a total duration of 9 days 21 hours 10 minutes 35 seconds. During the first flight from April 23 to April 25, 1971, as a test engineer of the Soyuz-10 spacecraft (together with V. Shatalov and A. Eliseev), the world's first docking of the ship with the Salyut orbital station was performed.
Georgy Mikhailovich Grechko
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He flew into space three times, staying there for 134 days 20 hours 32 minutes 58 seconds, during the first flight he performed a spacewalk lasting 1 hour 28 minutes.
Vladimir Vasilievich Kovalenok
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made 3 flights into space as a spacecraft commander lasting 216 days 9 hours 9 minutes 40 seconds. Worked in outer space for 2 hours 20 minutes.
Valery Viktorovich Ryumin
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He visited space four times, staying there for 371 days, 17 hours, 26 minutes and 58 seconds. Spent 1 hour 23 minutes in outer space. During the fourth flight from June 2 to 12, 1998, he served as a flight specialist for the Discovery shuttle STS-91. The program included the 9th (and last) docking with the Mir spacecraft.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dzhanibekov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He flew into space 5 times, spent 145 days 15 hours 58 minutes 35 seconds there. He went into outer space twice - for 8 hours and 34 minutes. During the 5th flight from June 6 to September 26, 1985, docking with an uncontrolled, inoperable station was made for the first time. The crew restored the station's functionality.
Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. He visited space three times, the flights lasted 333 days 7 hours 47 minutes 46 seconds. He also went into outer space 3 times and spent 7 hours and 7 minutes there.
Leonid Denisovich Kizim
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. During three flights he spent 374 days 17 hours 57 minutes 42 seconds in space. He went into outer space 8 times and spent 31 hours and 29 minutes there. Made 6 exits during the second flight from February 8 to October 2, 1984. During the 3rd flight, for the first time in the world, a flight was made from the Mir orbital station to another - Salyut-7 and back. More than 800 kilograms of cargo were transported from station to station.
Victor Petrovich Savinykh
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. During three flights into space, he spent 252 days 17 hours 37 minutes 50 seconds there. On August 2, 1985, during the second flight, he worked in outer space for 5 hours in one exit.
Svetlana Evgenievna Savitskaya
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. She visited space twice, spent 19 days 17 hours 7 minutes 00 seconds there. During her second flight from July 17 to July 29, 1984, as a flight engineer of the Soyuz T-12 spacecraft, she became the first woman to perform a spacewalk on July 25, 1984, lasting 3 hours 33 minutes 04 seconds.
Sergey Konstantinovich Krikalev
Hero of the Soviet Union, first Hero of Russia. USSR pilot-cosmonaut. Made 6 flights into space with a total duration of 803 days 9 hours 38 minutes 31 seconds. He went into outer space 8 times and spent 41 hours and 26 minutes there. From October 2005 to June 2015 - Earth record holder for the total time spent in space.
Elena Vladimirovna Kondakova
Hero of Russia. Pilot-cosmonaut of the Russian Federation. I've been to space twice. Flight duration - 178 days 10 hours 42 minutes 23 seconds. She became the first female cosmonaut in the Russian Federation.
Gennady Ivanovich Padalka
Hero of Russia. Pilot-cosmonaut of the Russian Federation. Made 5 flights into space with a total duration of 878 days 11 hours 29 minutes 51 seconds. World record holder for being in space. The number of exits into open and “closed” space is 10. The total duration of work in vacuum conditions in flight is 38 hours 39 minutes, 2 exits into “closed” space for 52 minutes (in a depressurized module).
Oleg Valerievich Kotov
Hero of Russia. Pilot-cosmonaut of the Russian Federation. The hundredth cosmonaut in the history of our country. Made 3 flights lasting 526 days 5 hours 2 minutes 7 seconds. He went into outer space 6 times, spending 36 hours and 42 minutes there.
Oleg Ivanovich Skripochka
Hero of Russia. Pilot-cosmonaut of the Russian Federation. During his first flight, he spent 159 days 08 hours 43 minutes 05 seconds in space as a flight engineer of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft and a flight engineer of the ISS under the program of the 25th and 26th main expeditions, together with Alexander Kaleri and Scott Kelly. On October 10, 2010, the spacecraft docked with the International Space Station. He went into outer space three times and spent 16 hours and 39 minutes there. He launched for the second time on March 18, 2016 as a flight engineer of the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft, together with the ship’s commander Alexey Ovchinin and flight engineer Jeffrey Williams. On March 19 at 06:09:58 Moscow time (03:09:58 UTC) the ship docked with the small research module “Poisk” of the Russian segment of the International Space Station.
Elena Olegovna Serova
Hero of Russia. Pilot-cosmonaut of the Russian Federation. Spent 167 days 5 hours 42 minutes 40 seconds in space. She launched on September 25, 2014 as flight engineer 1 of the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft, a member of the 41st and 42nd main expeditions of the ISS together with Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry Wilmore. On the same day, 5 hours 46 minutes after launch, the ship successfully docked with the ISS
Alexey Nikolaevich Ovchinin
Currently located on the ISS. Launched on March 18, 2016 as commander of the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft together with flight engineers Oleg Skripochka and Jeffrey Williams. On March 19 at 06:09:58 Moscow time (03:09:58 UTC) the ship docked with the small research module “Poisk” of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. To date, I have been in space for just over 24 days.
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