What Happened? - SOYUZ 11

Soyuz 11 was the first space mission that a spacecraft successfully locked itself to a space station as known as Salyut 1. Also it has hosted the first death scene of the human kind in the space. The spacemen were Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev. Soyuz 11 locked itself to Salyut 1 on 7th of June 1971 and spacemen stayed at the space station for 22 days with a great success. It was a record those days. But when spacemen went into the space station for the first time, they realized that there was a kind of burnt smell. They renovated the ventilation system and went to Soyuz 11 to wait for air to be cleaned. The day after, they went to Salyut 1. They started the scientific studies there.

At the day 11, a fire started in the space station. Ground control thought of evacuating the spacemen. One of the most important tasks for Soyuz 11 was watching the huge N-1's launch but the launch was postponed later. Crew had to do exercise with exercise bicycle but they realized that when they used it, the whole space station was shaking.

30th of June 1971 was the day for spacemen to come back. After an apparently normal comeback of the capsule of the Soyuz 11 mission, the recovery team opened the capsule and found out that the crew was dead. They were asphyxiated.It was determined that the disaster originated from a valve opened with an error when the landing module left the service module. The hooks holding the modules together had to be detonated sequentially, but as the spacecraft passed over France, they all burst together, causing the valve to open. The diameter of the valve was less than 1mm and was used to equalize the cabin pressure and the outside pressure in the final moments of descent.

But when the valve opened in the space caused all of the air to go out of the cabin. When the spacemen realized that the air was leaking to the space, their heartbeat increased and then slow second by second.

The spacemen of Soyuz 11 mission

Patsayev immediately felt that the air was draining and began to turn the valve by unfastening his seat belt, but passed out before he could complete it. Meanwhile, Dobrovolsky and Volkov had nothing to do because the place in the cabin was very narrow.

They were the first people who dead in the space. They sacrificed their life for the sake of a great purpose.

Live a life worth dying for.

- Muhabbet (NMBAL)

References: Wikipedia.