Georgi Timofejewitsch Dobrowolski

Georgi Dobrowolski
Country:	Soviet Union
Organization:	WWS
selected on	January 10, 1963
Calls:	1 space flight
Begin:	June 6, 1971
Landing:	June 29, 1971 (UTC, June 30th local time)
Time in space:	23d 18h ​​21min
retired on	June 1971 (death on landing)
Space flights
Soyuz 11 (1971)

Georgy Dobrovolsky ( Russian Георгий Тимофеевич Добровольский , scientific. Transliteration Georgy Timofeevic Dobrovol'skij * 1. June 1928 in Odessa ; † 30th June 1971 in space, observed in Karaganda , Kazakh SSR ) was a Soviet cosmonaut who on the Soyuz -11 mission and was killed by a sudden drop in pressure in the cabin.

Life

World War II and Air Force

From 1941 to 1944, Dobrowolski's hometown Odessa was occupied by Romanian and German troops. At the age of 15, Dobrowolski was sentenced to 25 years of forced labor for illegally possessing weapons. However, he managed to escape from prison and hid until Odessa was recaptured by the Red Army .

After the war, Dobrowolski went to various military schools and joined the Soviet Union's air force as a pilot in November 1950 . At times he was stationed as a member of the 71st Guards Fighter Corps of the GSSD at an airfield near Wittstock / Dosse in the GDR . In July 1961 he graduated from the Air Force Military Academy in Monino .

Training as a cosmonaut

In 1962 Dobrowolski went through the selection process for cosmonauts and in January 1963 was accepted into the second military cosmonaut group. His basic training ended on January 15, 1965 with the final exam, in which Dobrowolski had the worst result of the 15 candidates, but still passed.

Afterwards Dobrowolski was assigned to a cosmonaut group, which trained under the direction of German Titow as a crew for the planned space glider Spiral . In September 1966, Dobrowolski switched to the Soviet lunar program and trained for a manned orbit around the moon, later he was trained temporarily for the Almaz space station.

From August 1968 he trained for the command of a coupling mission in earth orbit. He was assigned successively Pyotr Kolodin , Oleg Makarov and Vitaly Sevastyanov as flight engineers . Dobrowolski was the third choice for the position of commander of the Soyuz 4 spacecraft . This flight took place in January 1969 and was the first time that space travelers had made a switchover in space.

From September 1970 he trained for a mission in the Salyut 1 space station . First he was divided into a team with Sevastyanov and Anatoly Voronov , in February 1971 he was then assigned to Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Pazayev . Dobrowolski chose "Jantar" ( Bernstein ) as the radio call sign .

Dobrowolski, Volkov and Pazayev were to form the third crew of Salyut 1 if the station remained in orbit that long. However, the first team under the command of Vladimir Shatalov could not fully dock with Soyuz 10 in April 1971 and had to return to Earth.

A second attempt was planned with Soyuz 11 under the command of Alexei Leonov . A few days before the start, Leonov's flight engineer Valeri Kubasov was suspected of having tuberculosis. According to the rules, the entire crew was exchanged, making Dobrowolski, Wolkow and Pazajew the first crew of a space station.

Death on Landing of Soyuz 11

Soyuz 11 was launched on June 6, 1971. The coupling to the space station took place fully automatically without any influence from the cosmonauts. The cosmonauts spent over three weeks in the space station, which was a new long-term record in space travel. Towards the end of the stay, the station was put into automatic operation because the arrival of the next crew (Soyuz 12 under the command of Leonov) was not planned for three weeks.

The brake ignition went as planned, and twelve minutes later the orbital module separated from the return capsule on schedule. A seal was broken by the shock and a pressure compensation valve opened prematurely. The air escaped from the return capsule, whereupon Dobrowolski, Volkov and Pazayev suffocated. Space suits and oxygen masks were not on board the Soyuz spacecraft , so the cosmonauts had no chance of survival. The landing took place automatically on the morning of June 30, 1971 ( June 29 according to UTC ). The rescue team found the crew lifeless in their seats.

The bodies of the three cosmonauts were taken to Moscow, examined there and cremated on the evening of July 1st. The urns were buried on July 3 with a state funeral in the necropolis by the Kremlin wall .

Dobrowolski left a wife and two daughters. After the Soyuz 1 crash , this was the second fatal space flight accident.

Honors

Dobrowolski was posthumously declared Hero of the Soviet Union and bearer of the Order of Lenin on June 30, 1971 . Streets and schools were named after him. The communications ship cosmonaut Georgi Dobrowolski , the lunar crater Dobrovol'skiy and the asteroid (1789) Dobrovolsky also bear his name.

His name is also listed on the metal plate of the Fallen Astronaut , the only work of art on the moon.

Web links

Commons : Georgy Dobrovolsky  - Collection of Images

• spacefacts.de: Short biography
• Georgi Timofejewitsch Dobrowolski in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
• astronaut.ru: biography (Russian)