posted 05-07-2017 07:41 AM               

Space Cover #416: Vladimir Komarov

Just over 50 years ago the second space tragedy of 1967 happened when Soyuz 1, carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov crashed after re-entry on April 24, 1967. This first manned flight of Soyuz was rushed to the launch pad by the Soviet government despite failures in all three prior unmanned test flights, and having a list of 203 design faults identified prior to the flight. During the flight, Soyuz 1's left solar array did not deploy and obscured some of the navigation equipment. Additional failures in the communications system and attitude control systems warranted a manual retrofire and re-entry the day after launch. Komarov performed the re-entry correctly, however both the prime and backup parachutes failed. The capsule slammed into the ground near Karabutak, Province of Orenburg in the present-day Russian Federation, killing Komarov instantly.

The memorial cover above was prepared by Robert Rank and postmarked at Satellite Beach, FL on the date of Komarov's death. Now, the purists out there probably just harrumphed at a cover postmarked a whole hemisphere away from the event. However, there are no covers from Karabutak (that I know of) for this event. In fact, the only non-backdated Soviet Soyuz 1 landing covers that I know of were postmarked in Tartu (now in Estonia), about 2500 miles from Karabutak, still a long ways away. And I don't have a Soyuz 1 Tartu cover, so above is as good as I've got...

However, if any of you have Soyuz 1 Tartu covers, or any other Komarov-related covers, let's post them to honor an incredibly brave cosmonaut who made the ultimate sacrifice. As always, I'll be glad to host your images if you can't – just email them to me.

posted 05-07-2017 01:52 PM               

As usual some private designs appeared like this crafted in cooperation by Igor Grishin and Alexander Pribytkov.

posted 12-31-2017 06:48 PM               

Komarov did not want to go but his back up was Gagarin who was a close friend. He couldn't talk Gagarin into turning down the flight if he, Komarov, did. So he wrote his will and in it he stated that he wanted his body, in whatever shape it was when he died, to be openly placed and not in a closed coffin. I think that he wanted to show the higher ups that they had killed him.