Vladimir Komarov, the cosmonaut who would take the first steps in space and crash landed on Earth

At the height of the Cold War, two superpowers battled to put their man on the moon. However, before the historic “one small step for man,” there was a giant leap in spaceflight.

It was a daring mission, one that would end in disaster for a brave cosmonaut.

This is the story of Vladimir Komarov, the man who fell to earth.

Komarov was the son of a worker and was born in 1927 in Moscow.

At a young age he showed a natural talent for mathematics and a keen interest in aviation.

After graduating from flight school, he became one of the best test pilots in the Soviet Union.

“For the Soviets, komarov was perfectsays Richard Hollingham, a science writer and co-host of the “Space Boffins” podcast.

“He was a great pilot and very patriotic; That’s probably why he was selected for two really prestigious space missions.”

The first flight

In the 1960s, hostilities between the United States and the USSR reached a boiling point.

As aviation technology advanced, in what became known as the Space Race, the two superpowers offered to be the first to land on the moon.

“From the beginning, the Soviets were first in almost everything.

“The Soviet Union put Sputnik into orbit, the first satellite; sent a dog into orbit, Laika; while The US seemed to be lagging behind all along.

Cosmonauts like Komarov and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, received very intensive training.

“They put them in isolation rooms. They made them rotate with very high g-forces. They were even dumped in a forest with only an ax and some matches to see how they would survive in the desert if their spaceship went off course,” says Hollingham.

In 1964, Komarov successfully completed his first spaceflight, Voskhod 1.

“That It was the first three-man spaceship.

“The apocryphal story about Voskhod 1 is that the engineer who worked on it was also assigned as a crew member to solve every problem, since his life would depend on getting it right.”

Soyuz and Apollo

A day after Komarov’s historic flight, Leonard Brezhnev was elected Chairman of the Communist Party and an ambitious new plan was put into motion: the Soyuz space program.

“It was a daring mission. They would launch a ship that would take Komarov into orbit, and then another with two crew members on board.

“They would meet and dock in orbit, Komarov would transfer to the other spacecraft and they would return to Earth on that one.”

But as the release date approached, that became clear Soyuz 1 was full of failures.

“In 1967 the program was a disaster and these spacecraft were not allowed to fly, but there was tremendous political pressure on the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution to get this spacecraft off the ground.”

At the same time, “exactly the same thing happened with Apollo in the US,” Hollingham points out.

“I talked to many of the engineers who worked on Apolo and they told me that Did they know the Apollo 1 spacecraft wasn’t ready yet?.

“However, they put 3 astronauts in Apollo 1 on the launch pad, it caught fire and they died.”

Despite growing concerns, Soyuz 1 successfully launched on April 23, 1967.

Krasnoznamensk, we have a problem

“Komarov knew as soon as he left that the spacecraft was in trouble.

“Once in orbit, things started to go wrong. One of the solar panels that powered the spacecraft failed to deploy, leaving it with very limited instrumentation.”

With numerous problems aboard Soyuz 1, the Soyuz 2 launch plan was canceled and Komarov was ordered to attempt to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere.

“It looked like he might be able to return after that disastrous mission, but the parachutes failed and he crashed to Earth.

“He probably died on the way back from the g-force.

“When it hit the ground, the spacecraft caught fire due to a malfunction of the retro rockets.”

myths

It is often claimed that Komarov was in contact with ground control during the reentry and relayed highly critical messages, but Hollingham doubts this.

“That version that he curses the Soviet Union, that he says lessons can be learned, to me it is very unlikely.

“First of all, you wouldn’t have been able to hear that, especially because it was going through the atmosphere.

“And second, when it realized something was wrong, it hurtled toward Earth too fast.”

Komarov’s remains are also a point of contention.

“There are several versions of what happened to Komarov’s remains. One is that her body was put on display for everyone to see what happened. There are pictures to prove it.

It has been said that Komarov probably knew he would not return alive and demanded that, in the event of his death, his body be displayed in an open coffin to embarrass the Soviet leadership.

“There is no evidence that that was what he thought. Komarov was a patriotic Soviet citizen. I don’t think he would have wanted his death to be a propaganda victory for the other side.”

On April 26, 1967, after a state funeral in Moscow’s Red Square, Komarov’s remains were buried in the Necropolis of the Kremlin Wall.

“For me, 1967 is a really pivotal year in the space race.

“In January there was the loss of three astronauts in the Apollo 1 fire, and then you have Komarov on Soyuz 1, the first man to lose his life in space.

“Both parties had to stop, think and return to the starting point”.

The name of Vladimir Komarov is one of the 6 cosmonauts and 8 astronauts that appear on the plaque accompanying the statue “The Fallen Astronaut” by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck, left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 15 in 1971.

A tribute among the stars to the man who fell to earth.