The cosmonaut, who was just 40 at the time, manned a 24-hour solo orbit of Earth in the Soyuz 1 in what was the first crewed flight of the Soyuz spacecraft.
Komarov launched into orbit aboard a spacecraft as part of the Soviet space program on 23 April 1967.
Soyuz 1 would successfully complete 16 orbits of our planet before tragedy struck when it was time for t
A parachute failure meant that Komarov’s capsule plummeted towards the Earth and exploded, becoming known as the ‘man who fell from space’.
Shortly before his demise, though, he recorded one final transmission which will send shivers down your spine.
Komarov’s navigation equipment was ruined after two of the spacecraft’s solar panels failed to deploy following orbital insertion, so he needed to orient his capsule to the Sun but failed after several attempts.
Soyuz 1 then started to transmit unreliable status details before losing radio communication with the Soviets back at base.
This led to the cosmonaut being ordered to reorient himself using ion flow sensors, but they failed, and he had only the opportunity to reenter Earth’s atmosphere after his 19th orbit.
With the main braking parachute not working as he fell towards Earth, he would die on impact.
It was reported that US listening posts situated in Turkey heard Komarov’s tragic and frustrating final conversation with Alexei Kosygin, a high-ranking official of the Soviet Union at the time.
“This devil ship! Nothing I lay my hands on works properly!” he’s claimed to have shouted.
The line was published in the 2011 book Starman by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony.
An official transcript of this exchange, according to the Russian State Archive, though, said that the final conversation between Komarov and Kosygin was far more civil.
“I feel excellent, everything’s in order. Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred,” they claimed.
Bizony and Doran even claim that the spacecraft had more than 200 structural problems before taking off, while Komarov’s backup pilot, Gagarin himself, allegedly asked for the mission to be postponed.
Following the unsuccessful mission, Komarov would sadly be killed in an explosion on 24 April 1967, with his remains appearing as a ‘lump’, leaving all but his heel bone recognisable to observers.