Beregovoi, Georgii Timofeevich

Beregovoi, Georgii Timofeevich 

Born Apr. 15, 1921, in the village of Fedorovka, Karlovka Raion, Poltava Oblast. Pilot and cosmonaut of the USSR. Major-general of aviation (1968). Twice named Hero of the Soviet Union (Oct. 26,1944, and Nov. 1,1968). Honored Test Pilot of the USSR (1961). Member of the CPSU from 1943.

Upon graduating from the Lugansk School for Military Pilots (1941), Beregovoi participated in the Great Patriotic War, first as a pilot, then as the commander of an assault aircraft squadron. In 1956 he graduated from the Air Force Academy (now the Iu. A. Gagarin Air Force Academy). He worked as a test pilot from 1948 to 1964. He was in the detachment of cosmonauts from 1964. Beregovoi made 64 orbits of the earth between Oct. 26 and Oct. 30, 1968, on the spacecraft Soiuz-3. During the flight, which lasted about 95 hours, the ship engaged in repeated maneuvering in orbit, using different methods of orientation; a double rendezvous with the spacecraft Soiuz-2 was carried out. Beregovoi has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii Third Class, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, two Orders of the Red Star, and medals.