Soyuz 3

Soyuz 3 was the first manned launch of a Soyuz spacecraft since the accident that killed cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on Soyuz 1. That ill-fated flight had been intended to rendezvous and dock with Soyuz 2; now Soyuz 3 with cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi would attempt this goal.

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Ground controllers were able to bring the two spacecraft within 200 m of one another before

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Beregovoi took control of the Soyuz to complete the maneuver. Unfortunately, while he was able

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to close the gap to only one metre, three successive attempts to dock failed. Eventually,

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almost all of the maneuvering fuel was expended and the objective had to be abandoned. The failure

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was blamed on Beregovoi's piloting.

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The plane crash that killed Yuri Gagarin was during his training for this mission.

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Cosmonaut: redirect Astronaut#Russia...

Vladimir Komarov: Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov (Russian: ???????? ?????????? ???????; March 16, 1927 ? April 24, 1967) was a Soviet cosmonaut. He was the first human to die during a space mission, on Soyuz 1....

Soyuz 1: Soyuz 1 (Russian ???? 1, Union 1) was part of the Soviet Union's space program and was launched into orbit on April 23, 1967, carrying a single cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, who was killed when the spacecraft crashed after its return to Earth. This was the first in-flight fatali...