science · 20 September 2000 · 24 years ago
death
Died 20 Sep 2000 at age 65 (born 11 Sep 1935).
Russian cosmonaut who was pilot of the Vostok 2 spacecraft on its 6-7 Aug 1961 orbital flight of 25 hrs 18 min. His spacecraft carried life-support equipment, radio and television for monitoring the condition of the cosmonaut, tape recorder, telemetry system, biological experiments, and automatic and manual control equipment. After Yuri Gagarin, Titov was the second human to orbit the Earth but was the first person to orbit more than once, the first to spend more than a day in space, and the first to sleep in space. He died holding the record as the youngest person in space (age 25). Titov was selected for cosmonaut training in 1960. After his spaceflight, Titov held senior positions in the Soviet space programme until his retirement in 1992.
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