Word: soyuz
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Unlucky 15. The rumors were given credence by Soyuz's name (it means "union") and its initial low and nearly circular orbit, which appeared to be designed to make Soyuz an easier rendezvous target. Also, the orbit's 51.5° inclination to the equator was close to the 51° parking-orbit inclination previously used by unmanned Russian moon probes...
Having piloted Voshkod 1 in 1964, Cosmonaut Komarov was the first Russian to soar into space twice. According to Western experts who tracked Soyuz and monitored its messages, he spent the early hours of his flight routinely checking out the systems of his 15,000-lb. to 16,000-lb. ship, which was slightly larger than the 12,000-lb. Apollo. But by the cosmonaut's fifth revolution around the earth, they believe, increasing difficulties with both the attitude-control and communications systems warned ground controllers that the flight of Soyuz might have to be prematurely ended. Plans...
Although the Russians have so far provided few details, Western experts believe that Komarov ran into real trouble on the 15th orbit, when an attitude thruster misfired, sending Soyuz tumbling wildly. It was the same kind of malfunction that nearly proved disastrous to America's Gemini...
Struggling with his controls, Komarov apparently tried to abort his mission on both the 16th and 17th revolutions, which took him close to his planned landing site in central Russia. But Soyuz was probably still tumbling, and Komarov could not use his retrorockets. Unless an orbiting spacecraft is stabilized and properly oriented when the retrorockets are fired, it can shoot farther into space or re-enter the atmosphere improperly and burn...
Died. Colonel Vladimir M. Komarov, 40, Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the first multi-manned (three) spacecraft, Voskhod 1, which orbited the earth 16 times in 1964; when his second venture into space aboard a new capsule, Soyuz 1, ended in disaster; somewhere in the U.S.S.R. (see SCIENCE...