Soyuz 11

Soyuz 11 was the second attempted but first successful visit to the world's first space station, Salyut 1. The Soyuz spacecraft was launched on June 6, 1971, from Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Kazakh SSR with cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev on-board.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They successfully docked with Salyut 1 on June 7 and remained on-board for 22 days, setting space endurance records that would hold until the American Skylab 2 mission in May-June 1973.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On June 30, 1971, after a normal re-entry of the capsule of the Soyuz 11 mission, the recovery team opened the capsule to find the crew dead. It quickly became apparent that they had asphyxiated and the fault was traced to a valve that had been jolted open as the descent module separated from the service module. The two were held together by explosive bolts designed to fire sequentially, but in fact they fired simultaneously while over France. The valve, less than 1 mm in diameter, was supposed to equalise pressure inside the capsule in the final moments before landing, but in this case had instead allowed the cosmonauts' air to leak away into space. Located beneath the cosmonaut's couches, it proved impossible to locate and block the leak before the air was lost.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Film later declassified showed support crews attempting CPR on the cosmonauts. Although there is a chance this was simply for publicity, it is possible they attempted to save the cosmonauts in the hope that the decompression accident occurred in a timeframe that might have allowed for any of them to be saveable. It is believed now that they had not been breathing for at least 15 minutes, and they were already dead when the spacecraft touched down.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The cosmonauts were given a large state funeral, and all three are buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis at Red Square, Moscow. U.S. astronaut Tom Stafford was one of the pallbearers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Soyuz spacecraft was extensively re-designed after this incident to carry only two cosmonauts. The extra room meant that the crew could wear space suits during launch and landing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Space station: A space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live on in outer space. A space station is distinguished from other manned spacecraft by its lack of major propulsion or landing facilities — instead, other vehicles are used as transport to and from the station. Space stations...

Salyut 1: Salyut 1 (DOS 1) was the first Salyut space station, and the first human-made space station of any kind. It was launched April 19, 1971. Its first crew launched in Soyuz 10 but was unable to board it due to a failure in the docking mechanism; its second crew launched in Soyuz 11 and remained on boar...

Soyuz: Soyuz is Russian for "Union". Depending on the context, Soyuz may also refer to any of the following:...