The Heartbreaking Story of the Only 3 Astronauts Who Died in Space

About half an hour before the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft was scheduled to land on June 30, 1971, in the plains of Kazakhstan, the flight control center located in the city of Yevpatoriya experienced a sudden silence.

Three Soviet cosmonauts - Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patasayev - are now landing on Earth after a record-breaking stay aboard the Salyut 1 space station , where they conducted experiments and discovered many unknown things about human habitation in space.

Georgy Dobrovolsky (center), Viktor Patsayev (left) and Vladislav Volkov (right) in the cabin of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Their spacecraft, Soyuz 11, launched on June 6, 1971. At the time of America's Apollo 11 moon landing two years earlier, the longest human stay in space had been about two weeks.

This Soviet crew spent 23 days in space, setting a new record for human endurance in space before returning home.

As the spacecraft was returning, a communications officer expressed concern about the lack of updates from the astronauts.

"We asked cosmonaut Dobrovolskiy to provide information the entire time the descent module was in range, but he didn't say a word ," said communications officer Aleksei Yeliseyev. "It's strange that cosmonaut Volkov is so quiet. During the last connection, he talked a lot."

The module carrying the brave men landed at around 2am, about 90km southwest of the town of Karazhal. A rescue team was immediately dispatched.

And another 20 minutes of silence as the control center team received no further reports.

Finally, the rescue team's news was transmitted. Sitting "in a quiet position", the three astronauts were found dead inside the spacecraft.

Behind the Race to the Moon

Russians watch the broadcast (delayed by several days) of the American Apollo 11 Moon landing in July 1969.

The Soyuz 11 mission began as public interest in space exploration was waning.

Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969. Many historians consider it the event that ended the great space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. But when it was supposed to be over, people lost interest. They had plenty of other problems that needed money to solve.

However, there was still much to discover about space and many milestones yet to be broken. For example, scientists had only limited knowledge of the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body. The longest humans had spent in space up until the Moon landing was only about two weeks.

'The Soviets were always concerned about the long-term effects of humans in space,' said Asif A. Siddiqi, a history professor at Fordham University. 'You really can't think about going anywhere, like Mars, unless you really understand how the human body is going to react.'

To make up for the losses in the Moon race, the Soviet Union quickly turned to the space station program. They gathered the equipment they had and hastily assembled a space station, launching it on April 19, 1971. The ship was named Salyut 1 and was the world's first space station to orbit the Earth.

The first attempt to send astronauts to the space station came just three days after the launch of Salyut 1. But the four-man crew failed to dock and had to return to Earth in less than two days.

The next attempt was Soyuz 11, which took place in June of the same year.

Originally, a group of three additional astronauts was scheduled to join the Soyuz 11 mission. However, just two days before the scheduled launch, a 'chicken egg-sized' spot was discovered inside the right lung of a flight engineer.

A backup crew consisting of Dobrovolsky, the commander, Volkov, the flight engineer, and Patasayev, a research engineer, would replace the main crew. The first three were eliminated, simply because you couldn't bring in a new person to replace someone in a crew of three cosmonauts. A crew had to be people who had trained together for a long time to be able to coordinate and interact smoothly.

Another Leap Forward for Humanity

Inside the Salyut 1 space station, the hatch leading to the Soyuz 11 spacecraft.

Soyuz 11 launched on June 6, 1971. The three cosmonauts quickly achieved a landmark feat by successfully docking with Salyut 1 the following day.

The Salyut 1 space station is very modest in size. It is about the size of a two or three bedroom apartment. A lot of the research conducted inside Salyut 1 is biomedical, but the crew also conducts a lot of other experiments.

According to NASA, Patsayev was the first person to operate a telescope in space. In another chamber, the cosmonauts grew cabbage and onions. Patsayev also became the first person to celebrate a birthday in space, and the men voted in a Soviet election.

Scientists also wanted to closely monitor the effects of space on the human body. A treadmill was installed on Salyut 1 and the cosmonauts wore spacesuits rather than their spacesuits on the space station and Soyuz.

However, the astronauts experienced setbacks including a small fire on board as well as "personality conflicts". Nevertheless, the crew successfully broke the record of 18 days in space set in 1970. In total, they spent about 22 days at the space station.

Tragedy inside Soyuz 11

Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsaev inside Soyuz 11.

Almost everything about the Soyuz 11 spacecraft worked as intended.

'The Soyuz spacecraft is a very automated spacecraft, so you don't have to do much,' said Professor Siddiqi. 'The Soyuz re-entry program is still going on and it's working perfectly.'

The three-man descent module oriented itself, and parachutes deployed in the early hours of June 30, 1971. The craft landed gently on the Kazakh steppe. A report also said that the astronauts were in good physical condition during the last few days of the journey.

But several mistakes on board and by the Soviet space program led to the tragic deaths of the cosmonauts . Michael Smith, a historian at Purdue University who has studied the Soviet space program, said Soyuz 11 can be seen "as a case study in risky planning."

Soyuz 11 consists of three modules. At the front of the ship is a module that acts as the crew's workspace. In the middle is a three-person cabin, and at the rear is a service module that carries the engines and power supply. To separate the modules, small canisters containing explosives are set to go off at a precise time in sequence. However, in this incident, the canisters were triggered simultaneously.

Unfortunately, the shock of the modules separating caused a valve in the cabin to open while the ship was at deadly altitude. The air inside was quickly released and within seconds, the astronauts were unconscious.

Without spacesuits and emergency oxygen tanks to protect them, the cosmonauts perished. The subsequent position of the bodies also suggests that Dobrovolski and Patsayev tried to close the valve, but were unable to react quickly enough.

Just two minutes after landing, a helicopter rescue team reached the module, which was now lying on its side on the ground.

When they opened the hatch, they found all three sitting in their seats in a 'peaceful position' . There were dark blue spots on their faces. Blood was flowing from the cosmonauts' noses and ears. Dobrovolsky's body was still warm. Doctors attempted artificial resuscitation but were unsuccessful. Death was reportedly caused by asphyxiation.

It's not hard to imagine what the astronauts must have felt in the first seconds of the incident. The excruciating pain that coursed through their bodies would have left them unable to think or comprehend what was happening. Sure, they heard the hissing of escaping air, but their eardrums quickly burst, and absolute silence set in. Depending on the rate of pressure loss, they could have actively moved and tried to do something in the first 15 to 20 seconds.

The valve opened at an altitude of about 170km, above the Karman line – an imaginary boundary often used to determine when spaceflight is reached. Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev are the only people to have died outside that line.

The unfortunate thing is that if the astronauts had been wearing space suits, they would have certainly survived the decompression. However, this was a common problem for missions, as previous testing had been inadequate, partly due to the haste created by the space race.

'A lot of failures in spacecraft don't show up right away,' says Professor Siddiqi. 'Sometimes you have to test it 50 times before something shows up. So they haven't flown these things enough to really know how they're going to behave.'

Contributions to history

Crowds march through Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the deaths of three cosmonauts.

According to Time magazine, a national day of mourning was held along with a large state funeral. Condolences were sent to the families of the men from Soviet leaders. Heads of state from other countries also sent their condolences.

In a telegram to Nikolai Podgorny, then head of state of the Soviet Union, then US President Richard Nixon wrote: "The American people join me in expressing to you and the Soviet people our deepest sympathy for the tragic death of three Soviet cosmonauts. The whole world followed the exploits of these brave explorers into the unknown and shared the anguish of their tragedy. But the achievements of cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev will live on forever."

According to historian Professor Siddiqi, the deaths of the three cosmonauts had a lasting impact on the Soviet space program. No further flight attempts were made in the next two years.

By the late 1970s, there were no more fatalities. The Soviet Union launched the Salyut 6 space station in 1977. Large crews docked and undocked there, and the duration of missions gradually increased from three months to six months.

On a more positive note, subsequent redesigns and improvements made to the Soyuz spacecraft (including the spacesuits used during reentry) have resulted in significant durability.