[FPSPACE] Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich, sixth man in space, dies aged 79: reports

[James Oberg]

Cosmonaut, sixth man in space, dies aged 79: reports

MOSCOW, Sept 30 (AFP) 
   Pavel Popovich, the sixth man and fourth Soviet cosmonaut to go into space, has died at a sanatorium aged 79, space officials said Wednesday. 

   Popovich is best known for piloting the Vostok-4 probe that in August 1962 took part in the first ever instance of two manned satellites orbiting the earth at the same time, a trip that made him the sixth man in space. 

   The other probe, Vostok-3, was piloted by Andriyan Nikolayev, who died in 2004. Popovich later took part in a longer 15-day mission as commander of the Soyuz-14 spacecraft in July 1974. 

   "Pavel Romanovich Popovich died Wednesday in one of the sanatoriums in Crimea. Now everything is being done to take his body to Moscow," the head of the federation of cosmonauts, Vladimir Kovalenok, told ITAR-TASS news agency. 

   ITAR-TASS quoted sources as saying that Popovich died of a stroke. He was five days short of his 80th birthday. 

   Popovich, born in 1929 in the Kiev region of Ukraine, was part of a pioneering team of cosmonauts who were trained to pilot the Vostok craft that were the first manned probes the Soviets sent into space. 

   He always described himself as the first Ukrainian to go to space. 
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