Pavel Ivanovich Belyayev

Pavel Belyayev
Country:	USSR
Organization:	AWMF
Call sign:	Алмаз (Almas - " diamond ")
selected on	April 28, 1960 (1st cosmonaut group)
Calls:	1 space flight
Begin:	March 18, 1965
Landing:	March 19, 1965
Time in space:	1d 2h 2min
retired on	January 10, 1970 (deceased)
Space flights
Vozhod 2 (1965)

Pawel Iwanowitsch Beljajew ( Russian Павел Иванович Беляев ; born June 26, 1925 in Tschelistschewo , Northern Dvina Governorate , Russian SFSR ; † January 10, 1970 in Moscow ) was a Soviet cosmonaut and colonel .

Career

soviet postage stamp (1965)

Beljajew, who comes from a village in what is now Vologda Oblast , learned the trade of a lathe operator after graduating from school . In 1943 he joined the Red Army and was trained as a fighter pilot. At the end of the Second World War he was used on the Far Eastern front against Japan . Before his appointment to the space crew, Belyayev was the commander of a fighter squadron. From 1956 to 1959 he studied at the Academy of Air Forces of the Soviet Union .

In 1960 he was appointed to the first cosmonaut group of the USSR . As a major, he was the highest-ranking of the twenty candidates and, with around 700 flight hours, also the most experienced pilot. On August 19, 1961, he broke his leg while skydiving and on August 30, 1962, after a year, regained his fitness to fly as a cosmonaut. On August 15, 1964, he and Alexei Leonow began his preparations for the Vozhod 2 mission .

As the commander of Vozhod 2 , Belyayev completed a space flight of 26 hours from March 18 to March 19, 1965. At the beginning of the second orbit, his comrade Leonow was the first person to go on a space walk . Serious disruptions occurred in the further course of the flight. The capsule was not completely tight, the pressure was maintained by additional oxygen, so that the oxygen concentration rose dangerously. The automatic landing procedure failed. Ultimately, manual orientation and initiation of the braking process are achieved. In total, Voschod 2 flew over the planned destination by 386 km and landed about 100 km north of Perm in the middle of dense forest in the foreland of the Urals . The difficult recovery of the two cosmonauts was only achieved two days after landing.

In the last years of his life, Belyayev suffered from a duodenal ulcer, which he kept secret in order not to lose his flight status. He died of peritonitis as a result of an operation that became necessary after acute symptoms at the end of December 1969.

Honors

The crater Belyaev on the moon and the asteroid (2030) Belyaev were named after him. His name is also listed on the metal plate of the Fallen Astronaut , the only work of art on the moon.

See also

• Manned space travel
• First cosmonaut group in the Soviet Union
• List of spacemen
• List of manned space flights

Web links

Commons : Pavel Belyayev  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• spacefacts.de: Short biography
• astronaut.ru: Павел Иванович Беляев (Russian)