Yevgeny Khrunov; Russian Cosmonaut

Yevgeny Khrunov, 67, a Russian cosmonaut who participated in one of the early linkups of two manned spacecraft. Khrunov was the flight research engineer on the Soyuz 5 mission that went into space Jan. 15, 1969. Portions of the takeoff and flight were shown on Soviet television, the first such mission to be so presented. The Soyuz 5 entered a coordinated orbit 130 miles above the Earth with a Soyuz 4 spacecraft that had a single cosmonaut aboard. The two crafts then maneuvered toward a safe docking. Khrunov and a civilian colleague, Aleksei Yeliseyev, made history by completing a one-hour walk in space before transferring to Soyuz 4. The two capsules remained linked for nearly four hours. In reporting the death of Khrunov, the ITAR-Tass news agency did not say when or where he died or provide the cause of death.