Belyayev, Pavel

Pavel Belyayev, in full Pavel Ivanovich Belyayev, (born June 26, 1925, Chelishchevo, Russia, U.S.S.R.—died January 10, 1970, Moscow), cosmonaut who served as the commander of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft during the Soviet Union’s eighth crewed space mission, launched March 18, 1965, the flight on which Aleksei Leonov, Belyayev’s copilot, became the first astronaut to walk in space.

Belyayev began training as a fighter pilot in 1943 and saw combat against the Japanese late in World War II. After the war he remained in naval aviation. While attending the Soviet Air Force Academy, Moscow, in late 1959, he was selected for training as one of the original group of cosmonauts. Following Leonov’s space walk, Voskhod 2 returned to Earth after one day in space. The orbital module did not separate on time from the retrorocket module, so Belyayev had to perform a manual reentry. The spacecraft landed hundreds of kilometers off course in inaccessible forest, and Belyayev and Leonov spent two days in the forest after landing. For his part in the Voskhod 2 flight, Belyayev was proclaimed a Hero of the Soviet Union. He died after an operation on his stomach.