Cosmonaut dies

Cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev, whose 1962 flight into space set an endurance record, has died. He was 74.

Nikolayev suffered a heart attack on Saturday in Cheboksary, the capital of his native Chuvash Autonomous Republic, where he was judging the All-Russian rural sport games.

Nikolayev became Russia’s third cosmonaut to travel into space when he and Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich were launched in separate crafts in August 1962. The pair made the first simultaneous flights, and Nikolayev set a separate endurance record, circling the Earth 64 times in 96 hours.