Georgi Dobrovolski

Georgy Timofeyevich Dobrovolsky was a Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the three-man crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft. They became the world's first space station crew aboard Salyut 1, but died of asphyxiation because of an accidentally opened valve. To date, they were the first and only humans to have died in space.

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6 June 1971: the USSR launched the world's first space station. Soyuz 11 transported cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Vokov, and Viktor Patsayev to Salyut 1, where they successfully docked with the station and set a new space endurance record