🚨Aug. 12, 1962 - Two Soviet spacecraft hurtled around the earth this morning in adjacent orbits while their pilots conversed with each other by radio telephone. Lieut. Col. Pavel R. Popovich (left), the second Soviet astronaut in 24 hours to go into space, was launched today at 4:02 a.m. EST. The 31-year-old Ukrainian joined Maj. Andrian G. Nikolayev (right), who was piloting Vostok III, to take up a “group flight” around the earth. Major Nikolayev, who went into space approximately 24 hours earlier, already had covered in his orbital flights more than the distance of a round trip from the earth to the moon. While operating his ship manually, Major Nikolayev reported that he could see the spaceship of his fellow astronaut through a porthole. There was no indication how close the two ships came.
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