Britt Jones
A cosmonaut used his final transmission to issue haunting final words as he fell from space to his death.
In April 1967, Soyuz 1 began its first crewed spaceflight, with Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov being the one to lead the mission.
However, disaster struck when the spaceflight, which was part of the Soviet space program as Russia and the US went head-to-head in the space race, crashed into an open field at around 7 a.m.
Komarov then became known as the 'man who fell from space'. It has been 58 years since the crash; however, many key details of the events leading up to it are hazy.
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In 2011, Komarov's death was covered in the controversial book Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, but critics have long questioned the book, believing that it contains many 'errors'.
What we do know thanks to verified reports by NASA, is that Komarov made numerous orbits around the Earth in his spacecraft and that his issues began after re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere following the completion of his mission.
It was on April 23, 1967, when Komarov’s space mission occurred, with him being about to orbit the Earth 16 times within 24 hours.
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However, one of the two solar panels that supplied energy for the manoeuvre failed to deploy, meaning Komarov was unable to complete the end goal of the mission.
Little did he know that this would become a space disaster that put back the Soviet lunar program 18 months, as per NASA.
Komarov was manning Soyuz 1, which was supposed to dock with Soyuz 2 and then transfer crews the following day, however, issues would arrive which would see Soyuz 1 having to be brought back to Earth.
Not only did one of the solar panels failed to deploy and was wrapped around the service module, he could not manoeuvre the spacecraft because of ‘interference of the reaction control system exhaust with the ion flow sensors’.
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These sensors were one of the main methods of orientation, which led to the decision being made to bring Komarov back to Earth, and while re-entry was fine…his landing was not.
When he reached an altitude of 23,000 feet, Komarov’s parachute that was meant to deploy, but when he deployed his drag chute to slow his decent down, a failure of a pressure sensor meant that the main parachute did not deploy, and the reserve chute became tangled with the drag chute.
Out of options, Komarov had no choice but to wait for his quick death as he hurdled down to Earth.
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With no way to stop his fast crash to Earth, the cosmonaut plummeted to the ground and was killed in an explosion on 24 April, 1967.
Tragically, Komarov knew he was about to die as his final words were overheard by the US listening posts in Turkey. He was clearly enraged talking to Alexei Kosygin, then a high ranking official of the Soviet Union, as his aircraft came crashing down.
His charred remains resembled a ‘lump’ and only his heelbone was recognisable, according to reports.
The audio is from that truly terrifying moment, as Starman claims he also said: "This devil ship! Nothing I lay my hands on works properly.”
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However, experts are skeptical of this, while reading the official transcript of Komarov’s final moments from the Russian State Archive, one of the last things he told colleagues was: “I feel excellent, everything’s in order.”
Just a few moments later, he reportedly said: “Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred.”