Soviet-era Cosmonaut Igor Volk, Trained to Fly Buran Space Shuttle, Dies at 79

Igor Volk, a Soviet-era cosmonaut whose only spaceflight in 1984 was intended to prepare him to fly Russia's space shuttle Buran before it was canceled, died on Tuesday (Jan. 3). "[Volk] was a representative of the legendary generation of cosmonauts," the city officials wrote on Zhukovskiy.ru. Roscosmos, Russia's federal space corporation, confirmed Volk's death in a post to its Facebook page.