Dobrovolsky, Georgy Timofeyevich

Georgy Timofeyevich Dobrovolsky, (born June 1, 1928, Odessa, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. [now Ukraine]—died June 29, 1971, in space), Soviet cosmonaut, mission commander on the Soyuz 11 mission in which he, along with design engineer Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev and flight engineer Vladislav Nikolayevich Volkov, remained in space a record 24 days. They created the first manned orbital scientific station by docking their Soyuz 11 spacecraft with the unmanned Salyut station launched two months earlier, but they were found dead in their space capsule after it made a perfect landing in Kazakhstan. Death was caused by decompression resulting from a leak in their capsule when a hatch was improperly closed. While in the space station, they had performed meteorologic and plant-growing experiments.