Soyuz 2A - The Misfortune of Soyuz 1

The Misfortune of Soyuz 1

Soyuz 1, with Komarov on board, was launched on 23 April 1967. Soyuz 2 was to be launched the following day, with both spacecraft spending four days in orbit.

Serious problems soon arose with Soyuz 1, however, particularly the failure of a solar panel to deploy, which caused the spacecraft's systems to become unstable. It was believed that the cosmonauts from Soyuz 2 could solve the Soyuz 1 solar panel problem via an EVA. Ultimately, however, the Soyuz 2 launch could not proceed due to poor weather conditions at the launchpad, a situation which proved rather serendipitous for the latter crew as their spacecraft suffered from many of the same design defects as did Soyuz 1.

The Soyuz 1 mission was then aborted and Komarov was able to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. However both parachutes and the retro-rockets failed, and Komarov was killed on impact.

During the course of investigations regarding the accident, it was discovered that Soyuz 2 had the same errors with the parachutes as Soyuz 1. Had Soyuz 2 also been launched, Bykovsky, Khrunov and Yeliseyev would have been killed as well.