Soyuz 1 was a crewed spaceflight of the Soviet space program. Launched into orbit on 23 April 1967 carrying cosmonaut colonel Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz 1 was the first crewed flight of the Soyuz spacecraft. The flight was plagued with technical issues, and Komarov was killed when the descent module crashed into the ground due to a parachute failure. This was the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight.
1964 commemorative stamp of Vladimir Komarov
The Soviet space program was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin—the first man in the outer space.
Members of the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD). 1931. Left to right: standing I.P. Fortikov, Yu A Pobedonostsev, Zabotin; sitting: A. Levitsky, Nadezhda Sumarokova, Sergei Korolev, Boris Cheranovsky, Friedrich Zander
Rocket 09 (left) and 10 (GIRD-09 and GIRD-X). Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology; St. Petersburg.
Chief Designer Sergei Korolev (left), with the father of the Soviet atomic bomb Igor Kurchatov, and Chief Theoretician Mstislav Keldysh in 1956
