page_title: Soviet space program
section_title: Incidents, failures, and setbacks
hierarchical_section_title: Soviet space program / Incidents, failures, and setbacks
caption_attribution_description: English: Polyus in Space
context_page_description: The Space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly known as the Soviet space program, was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, active from the 1930s until the state's collapse in 1991.
  The Soviet Union's space program was mainly based on the cosmonautic exploration of space and the development of the expendable launch vehicles, which had been split between many design bureaus competing against each other. Over its 60-years of history, the Soviet program was responsible for a number of pioneering feats and accomplishments in human spaceflight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile, first satellite, first animal in Earth orbit, first human in space and Earth orbit, first woman in space and Earth orbit, first spacewalk, first Moon impact, first image of the far side of the Moon and uncrewed lunar soft landing, first space rover, first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth, and first space station.
context_section_description: The Soviet space program experienced a number of fatal incidents and failures.
  The Nedelin catastrophe in 1960 was a disastrous explosion of a fueled rocket being tested on the launchpad, killing many technical personnel, aerospace engineers, and technicians working on the project at the time of the explosion.
  The first official cosmonaut fatality during training occurred on March 23, 1961, when Valentin Bondarenko died in a fire within a low pressure, high oxygen atmosphere.
  The Voskhod program was canceled after two crewed flights owing to the change of Soviet leadership and nearly fatal 'close calls' during the second mission. Had the planned further flights gone ahead they could have given the Soviet space program further 'firsts' including a long-duration flight of 20 days, a spacewalk by a woman and an untethered spacewalk.
  The Soviets continued striving for the first lunar mission with the huge N-1 rocket, which exploded on each of four uncrewed tests shortly after launch. The Americans won the race to land men on the Moon with Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.
  In 1971, the Soyuz 11 mission resulted in the deaths of three cosmonauts when the crew capsule depressurized during preparations for re-entry. This accident resulted in the only human deaths to occur in space (as opposed to the high atmosphere). The crew members aboard Soyuz 11 were Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski, and Viktor Patsayev.
  On April 5, 1975, Soyuz 7K-T No.39, the second stage of a Soyuz rocket carrying 2 cosmonauts to the Salyut 4 space station malfunctioned, resulting in the first crewed launch abort. The cosmonauts were carried several thousand miles downrange and became worried that they would land in China, which the Soviet Union was then having difficult relations with. The capsule hit a mountain, sliding down a slope and almost slid off a cliff; however, the parachute lines snagged on trees and kept this from happening. As it was, the two suffered severe injuries and the commander, Lazarev, never flew again.
  On March 18, 1980, a Vostok rocket exploded on its launch pad during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.
  In August 1981, Kosmos 434, which had been launched in 1971, was about to re-enter. To allay fears that the spacecraft carried nuclear materials, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR assured the Australian government on 26 August 1981, that the satellite was "an experimental lunar cabin". This was one of the first admissions by the Soviet Union that it had ever engaged in a crewed lunar spaceflight program.
  In September 1983, a Soyuz rocket being launched to carry cosmonauts to the Salyut 7 space station exploded on the pad, causing the Soyuz capsule's abort system to engage, saving the two cosmonauts on board. See also the complete list of space disasters.
caption: Polyus
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