Georgi Timofeyevich Beregovoi (cyrillic Георгий Тимофеевич Береговой) was born April 15, 1921 in the city of Fedorovka, Ukraine. He joined the Soviet Air Force in 1941 and began flying in a ground attack unit flying the Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik. By the end of the war he had flown 185 sorties and was a Squadron Commander decorated with the Hero of the Soviet Union.

He then entered the test pilot program and for 16 years flew over 60 different types of aircraft. In 1962 he applied and was accepted in the cosmonaut program as the only member of the 1964 group.

He was the proposed prime crew for the Vostok 10 flight that never flew. This mission would have been launched into a high orbit that would have been allowed to naturally decay to a reentry after ten days. Many things were planned for the later Vostok flights including geophysical and astronomical research, solar x-ray imagery, and medical-biological research. In the end only 6 Vostok flights were flown.

His next assignment was as the proposed backup crew for the Voskhod 3 flight. He would then have been on the prime crew for the Voskhod 4 flight. This would have involved artificial gravity experiment, unreeling a tether between the Voskhod spacecraft and the Block I final rocket stage. All Voskhod flights after Voskhod 2 were cancelled following the near fatal problems encountered on the flight and the death of Sergei Korolev.

His first and only flight came with Soyuz 3. Launched October 26, 1968, Beregovoi was the only cosmonaut on board the spacecraft that was meant to rendezvous and dock with the unmanned Soyuz 2. The spacecraft were brought within 180 metres of each other but then the docking failed as Beregovoi repeatedly put the spacecraft in an orientation that nulled the automatic docking system. He used almost all his orientation fuel in his three attempts and was forced to reenter four days later.

On his only flight he spent 3 days 22 hours and 48 minutes in space. After his performance on Soyuz 3 he was unable to receive a selection for any crew even the backup. He eventually took up a position at the Centre for Cosmonaut Training, and in 1972 was made Director of that facility. He held this positoin until 1986.

He died on June 30, 1995 from natural causes and is buried in the Novo Devichy cemetery in Moscow.


  • http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Beregovoi
  • http://www.astronautix.com/astros/bergovoi.htm
  • http://www.zarya.info/Diaries/Soyuz4-5/Index.htm

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