Soyuz 11

Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, the crew of Soyuz 11

Soyuz 11 was a manned space mission. It was the only mission to live on Salyut 1, the first space station. It was a backup mission of Soyuz 10, which was failed to dock. The mission killed three men in space when it lost air pressure during re-entry of the atmosphere. They were Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev.

Crew

Position	Crew
Commander	Georgy Dobrovolsky Only spaceflight
Flight Engineer	Vladislav Volkov Second and last spaceflight
Test Engineer	Viktor Patsayev Only spaceflight

Backup crew

Position	Cosmonaut
Commander	Alexey Gubarev
Flight Engineer	Vitaliy Sevastyanov
Test Engineer	Anatoli Voronov

Original crew

Position	Cosmonaut
Commander	Alexey Leonov
Flight Engineer	Valeri Kubasov
Test Engineer	Pyotr Kolodin

Crew notes

An X-ray testing of the original crew found that Kubasov might have tuberculosis. According to the mission rules, the backup crew replaced the original crew. Dobrovolski and Patsayev never flew to space before. Kubasov and Leonov became the crew to Soyuz 19 for the Apollo-Soyuz in 1975.

Death of crew

On 30 June 1971, after returing to the Earth of the capsule, the recovery team knocked on the side. There was no response. Opening the hatch, they found all three men in their couches, no motion. There had dark-blue patches on their faces and trails of blood from their noses and ears. They brought them out from the capsule. Dobrovolsky was still warm. According to their reports, the reason of death was suffocation.

Soyuz 11 on a 1971 USSR commemorative stamp

The cosmonauts were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis at Red Square, Moscow near the remains of Yuri Gagarin. US astronaut Tom Stafford was one of the pallbearers. They were also each awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal.