MOSCOW, June 13 Soviet cosmonaut Vyacheslav Zudov, who in 1976 was the commander of the Soyuz-23 spacecraft, the only one in Russian cosmonautics, died. abnormally landed on the water, reported the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (CPC).
«Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Zudov has passed away,» the message says. It is noted that Zudov died on June 12 at the age of 83. The farewell ceremony for him will take place on June 14 at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in Mytishchi.
The TsPK recalled that Zudov was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps in October 1965. He went into space flight on October 14, 1976 on the Soyuz-23 spacecraft together with Valery Rozhdestvensky. Due to the failure of the Igla rendezvous and docking system, the ship was unable to dock with the Salyut-5 station.
The landing also turned out to be abnormal. The landing of Soyuz-23 became the only landing of a manned spacecraft on water in the history of Russian cosmonautics (the ship landed on Lake Tengiz in Kazakhstan on October 16, 1976). The descent vehicle splashed down two kilometers from the shore. The rescue operation lasted several hours.