Popovich, Pavel

Pavel Popovich, in full Pavel Romanovich Popovich, (born October 5, 1930, Uzin, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.—died September 30, 2009, Gurzuf, Ukraine), Soviet cosmonaut who piloted the Vostok 4 spacecraft, launched August 12, 1962. He and Andriyan G. Nikolayev, who was launched a day earlier in Vostok 3, became the first two men to be in space simultaneously. The two spacecraft came within 5 km (3 miles) of each other. Vostok 4 landed on August 15, 1962.

Pavel Popovich, a herdsman in his early youth, graduated from a technical school in Magnitogorsk, Russia, U.S.S.R., in 1951, when he entered the army. He quickly transferred to the air force and in 1954 graduated from the Stalingrad Air Force College. He became a pilot, and in 1960 he was among the first to enter cosmonaut training.

Popovich was also the commander of the Soyuz 14 mission (July 3–19, 1974), on which he was accompanied by flight engineer Yury P. Artyukhin. The cosmonauts docked their craft with Salyut 3, a military space station that had been placed in orbit on June 25, and engaged in a 15-day program of reconnaissance of Earth’s surface. From 1980 to 1989 he was the deputy chief of the Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, near Moscow. He retired as a cosmonaut in 1982. At the time of his death, he was chairman of the board of the All-Russia Institute of Agricultural Aero-Photo-Geodesic Studies.