The biography of Vladimir Komarov is a clear example of the fact that with a certain perseverance, any human goals are feasible. The son of a Moscow janitor, who followed his own dream, went into space twice. By the age of 40, the man had started a family, built a dizzying career and received praise from and.

Childhood and youth

On March 16, 1927, the future hero was born in Moscow Soviet Union Vladimir Komarov. The boy's parents - Mikhail Yakovlevich and Ksenia Ignatievna - lived on Third Meshchanskaya Street.

Vladimir from his youth dreamed of the sky. The child spent a lot of time on the roof of his home, launching paper airplanes into the sky. It is possible that the passion for flying was the result of an interesting acquaintance. Simultaneously with the Komarovs, Boris Nikolaevich Yuryev (the creator of the helicopter) lived in the same building, who liked to talk with a teenager on abstract topics.

In 1943, the young man received a diploma of secondary education. The boy went to school No. 235, immediately after which he entered the First Moscow Air Force Special School. During the training, the young man was finally convinced of own choice, so after 2 years Vladimir entered the Borisoglebsk military aviation school.

astronautics

The first years of service in aviation, Vladimir did not think about space. After a lengthy training, Komarov was sent to Grozny, where the man began his career as a military pilot. After 2 years, Vladimir, who has already received the title of senior military pilot, returns to Moscow. To get closer to his dream - to get the position of a test pilot - Komarov goes to study at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.

The persistence with which the military man strove for the goal was noted by the leadership of the institute. Immediately after receiving the diploma, Vladimir is invited to work by the State Red Banner Research Institute of the Air Force. The ability to organize test processes attracted the attention of a commission that selects people for the first team of astronauts.

Despite the fact that the state was staffed, Vladimir was offered to work on a secret project. Komarov did not refuse and in June 1960 he began to study new disciplines for himself. During preparation and training, Vladimir closely converges with Yuri Gagarin. The friendship of the cosmonauts was so close that even after the death of Komarov, Gagarin did not leave his colleague's family without attention and support.

Alas, despite the high performance and professional approach, Komarov does not qualify for the selected six for the flight. To get into the group, which was supposed to go into space on the Vostok ship, Vladimir was helped by chance. Already approved for the mission, Grigory Nelyubov was not allowed to the final training by the doctors.

However, Komarov did not succeed in flying into space on Vostok. In September 1963, the program was suspended. Simultaneously with this news, doctors revealed suspicious heart failures in Vladimir. Among the leadership, talk began about removing Komarov from his post, but the cosmonaut persuaded the authorities to give him a chance.

The man went to the cardiologist Vishnevsky, who works in Leningrad. The doctor confirmed that failures in the heart do not carry fatal consequences. While being examined, Vladimir devoted a lot of time to Vishnevsky's little patients. The astronaut cheered up the kids as best he could and told the children about space.

On October 12, 1964, Vladimir Komarov went into space for the first time. Together with the man in the multi-seat vessel "Voskhod" were Konstantin Feoktistov and. The flight lasted 24 hours 17 minutes. In a small cabin there was no place for spacesuits and catapults.

After the successful completion of the flight, Vladimir was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The man was awarded the "Gold Star", which is now exhibited in the Museum of the Russian Army.

Personal life

The cosmonaut met his future wife in Grozny in 1949. The man saw a portrait of a girl in a shop window. Blinded by the charm of the beauty, Komarov tortured the photographer for a long time, who is depicted in the picture. But the studio workers only knew that the girl was a student. Pedagogical University. As the military would later find out, the beauty's name was Valentina.

Together with a friend, Vladimir spent his free time from service not far from educational institution until I met the stranger in the photo. Instead of bouquets of flowers, the future hero of the USSR brought scarce chocolate bars to meetings. Six months after the first date, the young people got married.

First, the newlyweds had a son. The boy was named Eugene, and after another 8 years, daughter Irina was born. After the death of her husband, Valentina did not marry, making her growing children the center of her own life.

Death

Shortly before the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution government officials decided that the inhabitants of the USSR should be pleased with another achievement in space. Responsible for the new record put receiver Vasily Mishin.

It was decided to launch two ships into space and dock in open space. After the completion of the first stage, the cosmonauts had to move from Soyuz 2 (as the second ship was called) to Soyuz 1, where Komarov was already located. In order to meet the deadline, pre-flight checks were carried out negligently. All 203 problems that the designers revealed during the tests preferred to be silenced.

On April 24, 1967, Vladimir sent Soyuz 1 into orbit. Mechanical problems made themselves felt almost immediately after the start of the flight. Realizing that the first ship could not cope with the assigned task, the leadership did not give permission to launch Soyuz 2.

Attempts to return Komarov to Earth continued for several hours. The ship rotated in space, Vladimir could not orient himself and take any action. Thanks to considerable experience, the cosmonaut, who switched Soyuz 1 to manual control mode, was able to start the deceleration process and begin landing.

Everyone involved in the operation breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the worst was over. Even Komarov himself reported to the mission control center that he felt fine and was in the catapult seat, fastened with seat belts. These were last words astronaut.

For 7 km to the Earth, new problems began. The brake parachute did not work, and the spare copy, due to the constant circling of the Soyuz 1, twisted the lines. It was impossible to reduce the speed with which Komarov approached the Earth. The crash occurred in the Orenburg region, not far from Orsk.

During the collision, Soyuz 1 entered the soil to a depth of 0.5 m and caught fire. The cause of the fire was carbon dioxide stored in the machine. The fire and the subsequent explosion were so strong that the remains of the astronaut could not be collected entirely.

Officially, the ashes of Vladimir Komarov are placed in the Kremlin, but they also come to bow to the hero of the USSR on a small hillock located in the open steppe of the Orenburg region. Finding a place is easy - the cosmonaut's colleagues planted a birch grove near the site of the tragedy.

Memory

• To perpetuate the name of the astronaut, a crater on the Moon was named after Komarov
• The surname of Vladimir is worn by the streets in Leipzig, Schwerin, Zwickau, Frankfurt an der Oder and the Lyon metropolis.
• In honor of the astronaut, 4 bronze busts were installed: at the school where the hero studied, in Moscow, in Shchelkovo and Nizhny Novgorod.
• The image of Vladimir Komarov is placed on 2 postage stamps of 1964.
• Composer Dean Brett composed in honor of the famous astronaut musical composition"Komarov's fall", which was performed by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in 2006.

Name the first cosmonaut of the Earth Yuri Gagarin known to the whole world. To the share of his comrade in the first detachment Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov a tragic championship fell - he became the first person in history to die during a space flight.

Today, spacecraft of the Soyuz family are considered the most reliable in the world. But bringing them to perfection was given with sweat and blood - not in a figurative, but in the most direct sense.

Komarov, going on a flight on Soyuz-1, was almost sure that he would end in failure. In the first detachment of cosmonauts, Komarov was the most technically trained specialist and understood that the ship was "raw". But it was also clear to him that his comrades had even less chance of mastering this technique.

Vladimir Komarov was older than his colleagues from the first cosmonaut corps - he was born in Moscow on March 16, 1927. When the war began, he was 14, and, like all his peers, he rushed to the front to fight the Nazis. In 1943, Vladimir entered the 1st Moscow Air Force Special School. Komarov graduated from it in July 1945, when the war had already ended. Graduates of the school were sent to study further. In 1949, Vladimir Komarov graduated from the Bataysk Military Aviation School named after Anatoly Serov and was sent to serve in Grozny, where the air regiment of the fighter aviation division of the Air Force of the North Caucasian Military District was based.

"Working with new technology"

In 1952, Komarov, who had already started a family, was transferred to the city of Mukachevo in the Transcarpathian region, to the 486th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 279th Fighter Aviation Division of the 57th Air Army.

In the mid-1950s, the pilot decided to continue his education by entering the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. After graduating from the academy, Komarov was assigned to the State Red Banner Air Force Research Institute, where he became a test pilot.

Soon a commission arrived at the Civil Aviation Research Institute of the Air Force, which requested the personal files of the pilots for review. Komarov was called in for an interview and offered to "work with the new technology." Komarov agreed and was soon called to go through a new stage of selection.

At the Central Military Research Aviation Hospital, the doctors were ruthless, weeding out candidates with the slightest deviations in health. Some were not only not allowed to work with the "new technology", but were also prohibited from further work in aviation.

Komarov was declared fit and on March 7, 1960 he was enrolled in the lists of military unit 26266, which would later become known as the Cosmonaut Training Center.

Among the 20 people who made up the first detachment of Soviet cosmonauts, Komarov was the oldest - he was 33 years old. Behind him was a great experience as a fighter pilot, the academy, the work of a test pilot. It was easiest for engineers to work with Komarov, since his knowledge allowed them to quickly delve into the technical side of things.

"East" becomes "Sunrise"

However, Komarov did not enter the six of those who were preparing for the first flight. Moreover, there was a question about excluding him from the detachment - the doctors found deviations in the work of the heart. He was suspended from training for six months. But the stubborn Komarov went to Leningrad, to military medical academy, where he underwent a new examination by the best specialists, and received a conclusion - the "peaks" on the cardiogram, which excited the doctors of the Cosmonaut Training Center, do not appear in patients, but just in well-trained people. He was allowed to train again.

Komarov's experience and knowledge were required in 1964, when it was decided to launch a ship with a crew of three for the first time.

Before chief designer Sergei Korolev personally set this task. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

This was extremely difficult to do. Fundamentally new ship was at the design stage, so it was necessary to modernize the single "Vostok".

For Korolev, nothing was impossible - "Vostok" became "Sunrise". To save space in the cockpit, which was catastrophically small, I had to abandon spacesuits. The crew of the first three-seat ship had to go into orbit in light training overalls.

“Is it all over and the crew returned from space without scratches?”

Vladimir Komarov became the commander of Voskhod-1, the crew included engineer Konstantin Feoktistov and doctor Boris Egorov.

The ship successfully launched on October 12, 1964 and after a daily flight made a safe landing.

Crew spaceship"Voskhod-1" (from left to right): Konstantin Feoktistov, Vladimir Komarov and Boris Egorov. Photo: RIA Novosti / Vasily Malyshev

Witnesses recalled that Korolev, having received a landing report, said: “Is it all over and the crew returned from space without scratches? I would never have believed anyone that a Voskhod could be made from Vostok and three cosmonauts could fly into space on it.”

While Voskhod-1 was in orbit, a " palace coup”, and the astronauts who flew away under Nikita Khrushchev reported success already Leonid Brezhnev.

Korolev appreciated Komarov. After the Voskhod-1 flight, he several times suggested that he go to work in the Design Bureau, but Komarov, who became an instructor-cosmonaut and worked with newcomers, preferred to remain in the cosmonaut corps.

At this time, the "lunar race" was gaining momentum. The ship, now known as the Soyuz, was originally developed for the Soviet manned lunar program. Work on the project was difficult, and in January 1966 Sergei Korolev died on the operating table. Soviet cosmonautics lost its "brain" and "motor".

Vladimir Komarov with his wife and daughter. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

An almost impossible task

The Soviet leadership urged on new leaders space program. Despite the fact that the first three unmanned launches of the Soyuz were partially or completely unsuccessful, a decision was made on a manned launch.

Moreover, a qualitative leap forward was planned immediately. Two ships were supposed to start, which had to dock in orbit, after which two astronauts from one ship had to go on board the other in spacesuits.

Designer Vasily Mishin, who replaced Korolyov, did not dare to challenge the opinion of the political leadership. The launch of Soyuz-1 was scheduled for April 23, 1967, and Soyuz-2 for April 24.

Since the summer of 1966, Komarov has been preparing to fly on the Soyuz-1. He saw everything and understood everything. But as a test pilot, as the most experienced in the detachment, he could not retreat.

Shortly before the flight, he visited his friend, who was in the hospital. In a conversation, Komarov calmly said: "Ninety percent of the flight will be unsuccessful."

Relatives recalled: Vladimir Mikhailovich put all his affairs in order, forced his wife to learn how to drive a car, on March 8 gave her a luxurious service, noting: “You will receive guests later.”

March 16, 1967 Komarov turned 40 years old. Belief says that this anniversary cannot be celebrated, but the astronaut received relatives and friends in his apartment for three days.

On the film frames of the pre-launch shooting, it can be seen that Komarov is extremely concentrated and almost gloomy. Despite the severity of the upcoming flight, he was not going to give up.

Drama in orbit

Soyuz-1 successfully launched from Baikonur on the night of April 23, 1967. But in orbit, big problems began almost immediately.

One of the two solar panels did not open, the ship began to experience a shortage of electricity. All attempts to open it were unsuccessful. There was a plan to launch Soyuz-2 with a crew of Valery Bykovsky,Alexey Eliseev and Evgenia Khrunova, after which the astronauts in spacesuits had to manually try to open the solar panel.

After the meeting, the State Commission decided that the risk was too big. Komarov was ordered to complete the flight and return to Earth. But here new problems arose - the ion orientation sensors failed. There was only one chance left: to orient the ship manually, commensurate the spatial position of the Soyuz with the Earth. At the same time, it was necessary to prevent serious deviations of the ship when flying over the night side of the planet.

Cosmonauts were not prepared for such a situation, and experts on Earth believed that Komarov had a minimum chance of success.

But the cosmonaut managed to do the impossible and Soyuz-1 began its descent from orbit.

When the surveillance services confirmed that the ship was landing, and even reported the estimated time of landing, the Mission Control began to applaud. It seemed like it worked out this time.

“After an hour of excavation, we found Komarov’s body among the rubble”

Vladimir Komarov did his best, but what happened next, he was not able to change. At the final landing site, the parachute system failed: the parachute at an altitude of 7 km (at a speed of about 220 m / s) could not pull the main parachute out of the tray; at the same time, the reserve parachute that successfully exited at an altitude of 1.5 km did not fill up, since its lines were wrapped around the unfired pilot chute of the main system.

The Soyuz-1 descent vehicle crashed into the ground at a speed of about 50 m/s. The astronaut had no chance to survive this impact. Damaged hydrogen peroxide containers provoked a massive fire that destroyed the descent vehicle.

From a diary head of the training of the first cosmonaut detachment, General Nikolai Kamanin: “After an hour of excavation, we found the body of Komarov among the wreckage of the ship. At first it was difficult to make out where the head, where the arms and legs were. Apparently, Komarov died during the impact of the ship on the ground, and the fire turned his body into a small burnt lump measuring 30 by 80 centimeters.

A flaw in the design of the parachute system could have ruined the Soyuz-2, taking the lives of four Soviet cosmonauts. The cancellation of the launch saved the lives of Bykovsky, Eliseev and Khrunov.

Later, “details” appeared that Komarov, allegedly before his death, shouted curses at the Soviet leadership and cried on the air. It's a lie. The astronaut's last report from orbit was regular and calm. Whether Vladimir Komarov managed to understand that he was dying, we will never know - the tape recorder that recorded what happened on board burned down in a fire.

Widow Valentina Komarova, cosmonauts Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov and Pavel Ivanovich Belyaev (left to right) laying wreaths at the grave of Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Mokletsov

High price

Komarov became the first cosmonaut to be twice Hero of the Soviet Union and the first to be awarded the title of Hero posthumously.

There is scary photo taken in the mortuary before the cremation of the astronaut's remains. It was made in order to provide top management with confirmation of the impossibility of parting with the body of the deceased and the need for immediate cremation.

“They opened the coffin, on the white satin lay what until recently was the cosmonaut Komarov, and now it has become a shapeless black lump. Gagarin, Leonov, Bykovsky, Popovich and other cosmonauts approached the coffin, they sadly examined the remains of a friend. I didn't go to the crematorium. General Kuznetsov and cosmonauts were present at the cremation,” General Kamanin wrote in his diary.

On April 26, 1967, the urn with the ashes of Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, after a solemn farewell ceremony, was walled up in the Kremlin wall.

Relatives and friends at the grave of Hero of the Soviet Union Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Vladimir Komarov during the funeral. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Mokletsov

The cosmonaut's daughter Irina recalled in an interview with MK: “In the issued death certificate, the column“ cause ”was indicated: extensive burns of the body; place of death: the city of Shchelkovo.

My mother’s voice broke from indignation: “What is Shchelkovo? What are the burns of the body if there is nothing left of the body? She showed this evidence to Gagarin: “Yurochka, and who will believe me that I am the widow of cosmonaut Komarov?” Gagarin turned pale, went "upstairs" to sort things out... Soon, another document was brought to my mother, which already read: "he tragically died at the end of a test flight on the Soyuz-1 spacecraft."

After the Soyuz-1 disaster, manned flights in the USSR were interrupted for a year and a half, the design of the ship was being finalized, and six more unmanned launches took place. The program that Komarov was supposed to carry out was carried out only by the crews of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 in January 1969. The Soyuz ship eventually became a reliable and proven machine. The reliability of which was paid for by the life of Vladimir Komarov.

Exactly 50 years ago, on April 24, 1967, Vladimir Komarov, one of the first Soviet cosmonauts, died due to equipment failure. On that day, his descent vehicle was landing, but the main parachute did not come out at all, and the lines of the reserve were twisted ...

Vladimir Komarov was born in Moscow on March 16, 1927. Already in his youth, he was drawn to the sky - after graduating from a seven-year school in 1943, he entered the First Moscow Air Force School. When he completed his studies, the Great Patriotic War already ended. After school, Komarov became a cadet of the Sasovo aviation school, and then ended up in the Borisoglebsk military aviation school for pilots.

In July 1946, Komarov was transferred to Batayskoe military school named after A.K. Serov, graduating from which in 1949 he entered the service of a military fighter pilot in the aviation regiment of the fighter aviation division of the Air Force of the North Caucasian Military District.

Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov in an airplane before a training parachute jump, 1964

Over the next 10 years, Komarov managed to rise to the position of senior pilot and study at the 1st faculty of the N.E. Zhukovsky. After training, he began testing new models of aviation equipment at the State Red Army Research Institute of the Air Force. There he received an offer to do test work in the cosmonaut corps.

In April 1961, Komarov completed his training.

The first flight took place on October 12, 1964. Together with two other cosmonauts, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov, he spent a day in space aboard the Voskhod spacecraft.

Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, USSR pilot-cosmonaut, colonel engineer, 1964

For a successful flight, Komarov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. And at the beginning of 1965, he qualified as a cosmonaut of the third class and was appointed as an instructor-cosmonaut in a group of cosmonauts trained under the programs of the Ministry of Defense.

The development of the new Soyuz spacecraft began in 1962. It was conducted under the leadership of Sergei Korolev. The first three launches were unmanned and revealed serious flaws in the design of the ship: the first of them, Kosmos-133, which was supposed to dock with another ship launched later, used up all the fuel after separation from the launch vehicle, which made docking impossible.

It was also not possible to land the ship - during assembly, the phasing of the commands to the control steering nozzles was mixed up.

As a result, the ship was destroyed with the help of an automatic detonation system - it could not be allowed to land outside the USSR.

The second Soyuz did not even have time to rise from the Earth - a rocket exploded on the launch pad. The third ship, Kosmos-140, had problems with the automatic attitude control system, because of this, he spent too much fuel and did not complete his assigned tasks. During landing, it turned out that the thermal protection was broken during the installation of a technological plug, which caused the bottom of the ship to burn out. As a result, instead of the planned landing site, he ended up over the Aral Sea, broke through the ice and sank.

But the space race continued. Despite the setbacks, the fourth launch was already manned.

As the cosmonaut's daughter, Major Irina Komarova, said in an interview, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution Soviet authority wanted to achieve in space. Although some of the designers spoke about the “dampness” of the ship, Vasily Mishin, who took the place of the Queen who died in 1966, insisted on launching.

Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov works out weightlessness in a laboratory aircraft in preparation for a space flight, 1963

“Before the flight, my father went to the hospital to see a familiar test pilot who was diagnosed with cancer. His wife later told her mother about the conversation that had taken place between them. The father confessed to the patient in the ward: “Ninety percent of the flight will be unsuccessful,” Irina said.

Understudy Komarov was appointed Yuri Gagarin. If Komarov fell ill, he would go on a flight instead of him. They were brought to the launch pad together. Gagarin was the last person to see Komarov alive.

After 540 seconds, the ship separated and went into orbit artificial satellite Earth. Problems began immediately - one of the solar panels could not be dealt with. It prevented the backup antenna of the telemetry system and the visor protecting the sun-star sensor from engine exhaust from opening. Neither solar nor stellar orientation proved impossible.

Vladimir Komarov during medical control at the Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, 1964

Until ten in the morning, the State Commission was determined with further actions. In the end, it was decided to land the ship. By this time, Komarov was making only the fifth orbit, but it was planned to land on the seventeenth. But the landing failed - the ship near the equator went off in pitch from the oriented direction.

“We are feverishly coordinating with the State Commission the option of landing on the 18th orbit. We feel that we do not have time, - later recalled in the book "Rockets and People" designer Boris Chertok, one of Korolev's associates. - There, on the other end of the ZAS line, there are disputes again.

The communication session on the 17th orbit ended, and we did not have time to transmit any new instructions to Komarov.

Finally developed apparently uniquely possible variant. He was in the reserve, but now he becomes the main one. We offer manual orientation to bright side“like an airplane”, then, before entering the shadow, transfer control to the KI-38 gyroscopes. This product of Viktor Kuznetsov's company has never let us down. After leaving the shadow, check and, if necessary, correct the orientation manually and issue all the required commands at the estimated times for landing on the 19th revolution.

The landing went well at first. According to ballistics calculations, the descent vehicle was supposed to land at 06:24, 65 km east of Orsk.

Chertok wrote: “We did not wait for a report from the landing site from anyone. Now we are not needed by the State Commission. Even Gagarin could not figure out complex system air force communications, how was the landing. Only a few hours later Gagarin received an urgent call for communication. He was informed that the landing was not normal, and he was told to urgently fly to Orsk.

Arriving at the landing site of the descent vehicle, the search team saw a monstrous picture. The flattened apparatus that entered the ground half a meter into the ground was engulfed in flames, and fussed around locals trying to pelt the fire with earth. Only fire extinguishers managed to bring down the flames.

The cause of the crash was an unopened parachute. The main one could not get out and open up to the end, and the spare got tangled in his lines.

By official version commission investigating the causes of the crash, this happened due to sudden pressure drops: a glass with a parachute deformed and pinched the main parachute.

As Chertok noted, the simultaneous operation of the main and reserve parachutes had not previously been studied. The commission's version seemed dubious. “Regardless of all the subcommittees, the team of specialists from our plant, which remained at the test site, decided to conduct their own experiment,” Chertok wrote. They had reason to doubt. They opened the OSB hatch, pulled out the drag chute, hooked its lines to the crane through a dynamometer and began to rise to measure the force at which the main chute pack would begin to emerge.

What a surprise it was when it turned out that the CA mass of 2800 kilograms was not enough. But at the same time, the container was not subjected to any pressure drop and, consequently, deformation compressing the parachute stowage. They did not report this experiment to the commission.”

The next day after Komarov's flight, Soyuz-2 was scheduled to launch with three cosmonauts on board. It was assumed that two of them outer space they will move to Komarov's ship, and then both ships will land.

If it were not for the problems with opening the battery, the second launch would have taken place and four cosmonauts would have died, and not one: the design of both ships was identical and the same design errors were made.

Another reason for the problems with the parachute exit was also expressed. The technology for the production of spacecraft meant placing the descent vehicle after coating with a heat-shielding coating in an autoclave, where, at high temperature, polymerization of synthetic resins, which are integral part thermal protection. But during the manufacture of the Soyuz, the covers of the parachute containers fell behind in time, so the descent vehicles were placed in an autoclave without them. And it is likely that the volatile fractions of the coating settled on the inner surface of the containers, making it sticky and rough, which prevented the parachute from coming out.

The reliability commission's recommendations included polishing the containers, increasing their volume, and increasing rigidity. The most important outcome of the commission's activities was the decision to pre-test all of its recommendations during unmanned launches.

“The shake-up that our entire space industry received had a decisive influence on improving the reliability of all systems and the further Soyuz development program,” Chertok wrote. “All those who flew safely, those who fly and those who will fly into space on the Soyuz should remember that they owe a reliable and safe return to Earth not only to the creators of spaceships, but also to Vladimir Komarov.”

Already in the 2000s, Chertok told reporters: “What happened to Komarov is our mistake, the system developers. We let him in too early. The Soyuz was not completed ... The death of Komarov is on the conscience of the designers.

Now the Soyuz has become a key component of the Soviet and Russian manned space exploration programs, and after 2011 - the only means of delivering crews to the International Space Station.

Komarov was buried the very next day, April 25. His remains were cremated, and the urn with the ashes was placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. Zhenya was issued a death certificate, in which in the chapter "cause" it was indicated: "extensive burns of the body", and the city of Shchelkovo was listed as the place of death.

She showed this evidence to Gagarin: “Yurochka, and who will believe me that I am the widow of cosmonaut Komarov?” Gagarin turned pale, went “upstairs” to figure it out ... Soon, another document was brought to my mother, which already indicated: “he tragically died at the end of a test flight on the Soyuz-1 spacecraft,” the daughter recalled. The cosmonaut's family received an apartment in Moscow as compensation and received monthly payments until the collapse of the USSR. Komarov himself was posthumously awarded the second "Gold Star".

Incredible Facts

Photographs allow us to better understand life and often capture moments that may be forgotten.

3. Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole

Robert Falcon Scott (middle) led the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition starting in 1910 in hopes of becoming the first to conquer the geographic South Pole.

They managed to get to the pole on January 17, 1912, but 34 days before they got there, the Norwegian team. Their return home was difficult and stubborn, and the team's condition began to deteriorate inexorably, with many suffering from frostbite and other injuries.

Some of their bodies, diaries and photographs were found by a search party 8 months later.

The last entry in Scott's diary was dated March 29, 1912, the estimated date of his death.

4. Vulture and girl

In 1993, in Sudan, near the city of Ayod, the parents of this girl left her for a short time, running for food from the plane. The emaciated child also tried to get to the food, but was tired. Grif landed beside her and watched her as she rested.

Kevin Carter, the South African photojournalist who took the photo, committed suicide a year later. He was heavily criticized for taking the photograph. Carter tried to chase the bird away, but often regretted not doing more to help the child.

Rare historical photographs

5. Remains of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov

To the 50th anniversary October revolution the government decided to celebrate it with a space flight. Vladimir Komarov was chosen as the commander of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft, and Yuri Gagarin was chosen as his understudy. Both cosmonauts knew the capsule was not safe to fly, but neither dared to delay or cancel the mission by telling Brezhnev.

Komarov decided not to cancel the mission, he did not want Gagarin to be sent instead of him, and he would die instead of him.

Gagarin appeared during the launch and demanded that he also be put in a spacesuit, but he was refused.

The photo shows Komarov's funeral with an open coffin, where his charred remains were put on display. They say that Komarov himself demanded this before the flight in order to show the authorities who were responsible for his death.

6. Death selfie of mother and son

Gary Slok (Gary Slok) - 15-year-old teenager was on his way to rest with his mother Petra Langeveld (Petra Langeveld) in Kuala Lumpur. As they took their seats on the ill-fated MH17, they decided to take a selfie together.

Three hours after the photo was taken, their plane was shot down and crashed on the Ukrainian-Russian border.

7The Monk Who Sacrifices Himself

In 1963, the Buddhist majority in South Vietnam reached a breaking point in the growing tensions under the repressive regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem. In May of that year, Buddhists gathered in the city of Hue to defend their rights.

The government aggressively dispersed the crowd and nine Buddhists died. In protest against the regime, two elderly monks committed ritual suicide at a busy intersection in Saigon, Vietnam on June 11, 1963.

8. Eternal love

Skeletons in this picture about 2800 years old. Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania determined that both died around 800 BC. They were discovered at the archaeological site known as Hasanlu in Iran in 1972.

Both skeletons belong to men and they may be related. The city where they were was burned down during a military operation. Perhaps they were hiding from the soldiers, but quickly suffocated because of the fire. At the last moment, they clung to each other before dying.

9. Concussion shock

This photograph was taken during the Battle of Courcelet in France in September 1916.

A man sits crouched in a trench, showing shell shock, which was described as the empty, unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier. Gazing is a dissociation from trauma and occurs in post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, it is worth noting that at that time people were not smiling in photographs.

10. A girl from a concentration camp draws a house

A girl who grew up in a concentration camp was asked to paint a picture of "home" while she was in an institution for mentally disturbed children. It's hard to say what the lines mean to her, perhaps chaos or barbed wire.

There is little information regarding the girl, it is known that her name is Terezka. Her eyes are no longer the eyes of a naive child, but of someone who experienced all the horrors at such a young age.

Vladimir Komarov began to prepare for the launch in 1965, the flight was to take place on a new multi-seat Soviet ship of the Soyuz series. The 38-year-old cosmonaut already had experience of flying into near-Earth orbit: in October 1964, on board the Voskhod spacecraft, he, together with Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov, made a two-day voyage into space. During this time, the ship circled the globe 16 times.

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For the successful completion of the flight, Vladimir Komarov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Soon he was awarded the qualification of "third-class cosmonaut", and in January 1965 he was appointed an instructor in a group of cosmonauts trained under the programs of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

The second flight of Komarov, which began on April 23, 1967, turned out to be fatal: he died the next day during an emergency descent to Earth. When performing the final maneuver, the main parachute of the descent vehicle did not open, and the lines of the reserve twisted due to strong rotation. At a speed of about 100 kilometers per hour, the descent vehicle crashed into the ground in the Orenburg region and caught fire.

Komarov's colleague, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, in an interview with TASS, said that the original flight plan provided for the following: Komarov starts on Soyuz-1, after a successful orbit launch, Soyuz-2 with three crew members - Valery Bykovsky, Evgeny Khrunov and Alexei Eliseev. The last two, after docking the Soyuz spacecraft in near-Earth orbit, were to go into outer space and transfer from the second Soyuz to Komarov's spacecraft, with which they would return to Earth. Komarov's understudy was Yuri Gagarin, who was rushing into space.

540 seconds after launch, the ship entered orbit. On the second orbit, communication was established with Komarov, and he was able to report to Earth that one of the solar arrays had not opened. The MCC decided to stop the flight.

A tragic combination of circumstances led to the death of Vladimir Komarov. Here is how Alexei Leonov describes what he saw in the Orenburg steppe: “Due to the fact that there is its own oxygen, the metal burned like wood. When the commission flew to the place, they saw a depressing picture: the ship settled down and looked like a sand hill about one meter high. was like a puddle of water."

Subsequently, some media wrote about the allegedly terrible cries of Komarov, which were heard on the radio on Earth, and that before his death he swore strongly at the designers who created the ship. Leonov called the speculation of journalists stupidity.

For heroism, courage and bravery shown during the flight, Vladimir Komarov was posthumously awarded the second Gold Star medal. The International Committee for Aeronautics and Space Flight honored his feat with the Order of the Rose of the Winds with diamonds.

The ashes of Vladimir Komarov are buried in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. A memorial was erected at the site of the death of the cosmonaut in the steppe near Orsk in the Orenburg region.