Tragedy plagues the Soyuz One Space shuttle

Jivan Johal
Apr 24, 2017
3 min read

It was 1967, and the Cold war was in full swing. Berlin had been walled in two, the American President, John F Kennedy was dead (an assassination believed by many to be of Communist planning), a nuclear nightmare was averted in Cuba, and Vietnam was in full-out war. Amidst all this, the space race, a critical part of the cold war, was still underway. The Soviets had initially won the space race when they put "Sputnik One" into orbit, and received a signal from it. At the same time, the American space program was not able to keep up after the Apollo One disaster. From the very start, the Soviets were in the lead, but this tragedy would be a major trip for the Soviet space program.

The Soyuz one was the first shuttle in the Soyuz 7K-OK generation of rockets that would have a human on board, and was the first ship being launched since the death of one of the chief designers. The rocket was plagued with issues from the start, with engineers noting that there were some 203 issues with the rocket, such as launch abort systems, and other issues. Despite the issues, the team continued to prepare the shuttles, because they felt pressure from their superiors to put a rocket in space for Lenin's birthday anniversary. Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, was the backup cosmonaut, but would not get to fly the Soyuz One despite his wishes; the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev could not risk a national hero's life.

Instead, Vladimir Komarov, the intended cosmonaut, would man the ship. On April 23rd, 1967, Soyuz One was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (in present-day Kazakhstan). A second shuttle, the Soyuz Two, was supposed to be launched a day after to regroup with Soyuz One and repair its solar panels. The second launch was cancelled due to thunderstorms, and the One was left up in space alone. The issues

prior to launch became evident as the ship planned its reentry. As Komarov was descending, The main parachute on the capsule he was in failed to deploy, and when he deployed the reserve chute, it tangled with the already-failed chute, resulting in the capsule hitting the ground at speeds of over 140km/hr. The reverse thrusters, (that were meant to slow the capsules prior to touchdown), kicked in after the shuttle had crashed into the ground, setting the capsule on fire and assuring the space team that Komarov was indeed dead. His body was later recovered, and the autopsy determined it was the impact and fire that killed him. The cause for the crash was disputed, but is widely attributed to the parachute failure.

There were reports that Komarov had cursed his space team on the ground prior to the launch, and that he was busy talking to his wife on his way down. The curse story was widely discredited, although there did exist a recording of him speaking to his wife on his way down, suggesting cosmonaut error.

The Soyuz One tragedy saw Komarov given a state funeral and a burial at the Red Square Necropolis. Also buried were plans to put a Soviet on the moon, as the following Soyuz models would also suffer from issues, leading to other tragedies and launch aborts.

In the end, the events of the Soyuz One tragedy would ultimately end the Soviet dream of a Russian on the moon.