The final words of a cosmonaut in final transmission as he fell from space to his death are as chilling as it gets.
Back in April 1967, Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov tragically lost his life while on a space mission.
Soyuz 1, a crewed spaceflight of the Soviet space program, crashed some 57-years-ago in what is regarded as one of the most catastrophic space disasters.
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The tragic incident led to Komarov being known as the ‘man who fell from space’, though many details regarding his death remain a mystery even to this day.
This is very much due to the secrecy that surrounds the Soviet Union, leading to many of the key details being a little hazy.
Komarov's death was covered extensively in the controversial 2011 book, Starman, The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin.
However, the validity of that book has long been questioned, with it even being described as ‘rife with errors’.
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What we do know is Komarov made numerous orbits around the Earth in his spacecraft and struggled to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere after his mission was completed, ending up plummeting to the ground before he died in an explosion.
It was on April 23, 1967, when Komarov’s final space mission journey took place, and over the course of 24 hours, he orbited the Earth 16 times.
One of the two solar panels that supplied energy for the manoeuvre failed to deploy, meaning Komarov was unable to complete the end goal of the mission. He was instructed to come back to Earth, however, re-entry would prove to claim his life.
Two more trips around Earth in an attempt to re-enter would follow before his final attempt.
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When he reached an altitude of 23,000 feet, Komarov’s parachute that was meant to deploy failed to do so because the lines of the chute had gotten tangled during his re-entry issues.
This led to the cosmonaut plummeting to the ground and was killed in an explosion on 24 April, 1967.
Tragically, Komarov knew he was about to die as his final words were overheard by the US listening posts in Turkey. He was clearly enraged talking to Alexei Kosygin, then a high ranking official of the Soviet Union, as his aircraft came crashing down.
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His charred remains resembled a ‘lump’ and only his heelbone was recognisable, according to reports.
The audio is from that truly terrifying moment. Starman claims he also said, "This devil ship! Nothing I lay my hands on works properly.”
However, experts are skeptical of this, while reading the official transcript of Komarov’s final moments from the Russian State Archive, one of the last things he told colleagues was: “I feel excellent, everything’s in order.”
Just a few moments later, he reportedly said: “Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred.”
Callum Jones