The fact that Proton and all the other aeronauts were dead was never announced, but they did get an excellent funeral. Aurora had now been in the Soviet Union long enough to understand. A big, splashy balloon launch made for excellent, upbeat propaganda. A big funeral made for sad, but still excellent, propaganda. The in-between part—the actual announcement that the balloon had crashed and killed everyone aboard—did not make for such great propaganda and so it was simply omitted. Beyond a certain point you were just expected to know that all of those aeronauts were dead.
