Suborbital Russian

Andrei Mitkov Phantom cosmonaut. . Died January 1959.

Personal: Male. Reported killed on a sub-orbital flight in January 1959.

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: Phantom Cosmonaut.

In December 1959, the Italian news agency Continentale reported that a series of cosmonaut deaths on suborbital flights had been revealed by a high-ranking Czech communist. Among these were Mitkov, said to have perished in 1959. No other evidence of Soviet suborbital manned flights ever came to light.