Soyuz 3

Soyuz 3 was the first crewed launch of a Soyuz spacecraft since the accident that killed cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on Soyuz 1. That ill-fated flight had been intended to rendezvous and dock with Soyuz 2; now Soyuz 3 with cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi would attempt this goal.

Ground controllers were able to bring the two spacecraft within 200m of one another before Beregovoi took control of the Soyuz to complete the maneuver. Unfortunately, while he was able to close the gap to only one metre, three successive attempts to dock failed. Eventually, almost all of the maneuvering fuel was expended and the objective had to be abandoned. The failure was blamed on Beregovoi's piloting

The plane crash that killed Yuri Gagarin was during his training for this mission.

Previous Soyuz mission: Soyuz 2; Next Soyuz mission: Soyuz 4