95 years since the birth of cosmonaut Pavlo Popovych

October 5 marked the 95th anniversary of the birth of Pavlo Popovych, the first Ukrainian to fly in space.

He was born in 1930 in the town of Uzyn (now a city) in the Kyiv region. His family was poor—his father worked as a stoker at a local sugar factory, and his mother took care of the children and the household. However, in addition to his small salary, his father received food rations, which helped the Popovych family survive the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933.

He attended a local seven-year school where the language of instruction was Ukrainian. The family also spoke Ukrainian at home, and Pavlo retained his love for his native language throughout his life.

There was a military airfield in Uzyn, where little Pavlo began to visit and became fascinated with aviation. However, with the start of the German-Soviet war in 1941, Uzyn quickly fell under occupation, and it seemed that the boy's dreams not only of the sky but also of education were dashed. However, after the Nazis were expelled, he quickly made up for lost time — he finished school, then the Magnitogorsk Industrial Technical School, and at the same time was able to attend the local flying club. This opened the way to the Kachinsky Military Pilot School, which Popovych graduated from in 1954.

The young fighter pilot quickly attracted the attention of the command. Not only his high professional and volitional qualities, but also his sociable character and excellent physical fitness made an impression. This was what they paid attention to first and foremost when selecting candidates for the first cosmonaut squadron.

On August 12, 1962, Pavlo Popovych took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the Vostok-4 spacecraft. He became the eighth person on the planet to fly in space. He spent almost three days in orbit and also took part in the world's first group flight of manned spacecraft — Andriyan Nikolayev had launched aboard Vostok-3 a day earlier. For the first time in history, cosmonauts oriented their ships in space. The Vostoks approached each other at a distance of 5-6 km, the first experiments with radio communication in orbit took place, and the cosmonauts photographed each other's ships. They also carried out an extensive program of scientific, technical, and medical-biological experiments. And for the first time, a Ukrainian song was heard in space. Pavlo sang “I look at the sky and think.”

Like all the first cosmonauts, Popovych was greeted with great fame upon his return to Earth. However, unlike some of his colleagues, he did not drown in the waves of public adoration, but continued to work hard. He graduated from the Zhukovsky Academy, defended his doctoral dissertation, and continued to prepare for subsequent flights. A number of missions never took place, but in July 1974, Popovich made his second space flight as commander of the Soyuz-14 spacecraft and the Salyut-3 orbital station, together with flight engineer Yuri Artyukhin.

From 1978 to 1989, Pavlo Popovych worked as deputy head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. He rose to the rank of major general. After retiring, he served as chairman of the board of directors of the Institute of Agricultural Aerial Photogrammetric Research.

Popovich never forgot his homeland, his native Ukraine. He enjoyed communicating with his fellow countrymen. In numerous interviews, he constantly emphasized his Ukrainian origins, of which he was proud.

Pavlo Popovych passed away on the night of September 30, 2009.