posted 04-24-2017 08:58 AM               

On April 23, 1967, after more than a two-year gap in human space flight, the Soviet Union announced the launch of a new-generation spacecraft called Soyuz-1 ("union") with a veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov onboard. Customary for the secretive Soviet space program, the official report contained generalized statements about testing of a new spaceship but no details on its design or its mission. However, the next day, the USSR followed up with the announcement that Komarov had tragically died on landing due to a failure of the parachute system.

We are very saddened by the loss of Col. Komarov. We feel comradeship for this test pilot because we have met several of his fellow cosmonauts and we know that we are all involved in a pioneering flight effort that is not without hazard. We particularly want to express our deep sense of sympathy to Mrs. Komarov, their children and his fellow cosmonauts.

posted 04-24-2017 04:39 PM               

This is an attempt to use the transcripts, along with other Russian language sources, to offer a new and comprehensive account of this deeply misunderstood mission.

posted 04-25-2017 09:22 AM               

The one major casualty of the post-Soyuz I investigation was Chief Designer Tkachev of the Scientific-Research and Experimental Institute of the Parachute-Landing Service who had designed the Soyuz parachute system. Although the unofficial version clearly exonerated his organization of any blame, Tkachev was fired from his job in 1968, ending his role in designing the parachute systems for Vostok, Voskhod, Zenit, Soyuz, and many other Soviet spacecraft of the era. Two parachute testing failures following Soyuz I apparently sealed his fate.

...one that attributed the accident to gross negligence on the part of technicians at TsKBEM's manufacturing plant. During preflight preparations, the two Soyuz ships had been coated with thermal protection materials and then delivered into a high-temperature test chamber to polymerize the synthetic resin. In the case of the two Soyuz ships for the April 1967 mission, technicians tested the vehicles in the chamber with their parachute containers, but apparently without the covers for the containers.

In Deputy Chief Designer Chertok's investigation of the matter in the early 1990s, he could not find anyone still alive who could remember why the covers had been left off. Because of the omission of the covers, the interiors of the parachute containers were coated with a polymerized coating, which formed a very rough surface, thus eventually preventing the parachute from deploying on Soyuz I.

Clearly, the most chilling implication of this manufacturing oversight was that both Soyuz spacecraft were doomed to failure — that is, if Komarov had not faced any troubles in orbit and the Soyuz 2 launch had gone on as scheduled, all four cosmonauts would have certainly died on return.

The unofficial cause of the accident was never included in the official report on Soyuz I, partly because those at the manufacturing plant who knew of the violation of testing procedure chose to remain silent on the issue so as not to incriminate themselves.