The 20th century was full of awesome breakthroughs
and historical events. But some of them stood out even from that
incredible crowd. And one such event was the mission of Soyuz
5, which made huge headlines not only for its importance, but for its amazing style
— and its incredible landing. Soyuz 5, translated from Russian as Union
5, was a Soviet spacecraft launched on January 15, 1969. Just like the U.S. space program, Soyuz had
numbers for each of their spacecrafts, but Soyuz 5 had one peculiarity. It was sent to the orbit just a day after
another craft, Soyuz 4, went there. They had one mission between the two of them:
it was manned docking and transfer of the crew. If the mission had become a success, it would’ve
been the first such feat performed in the history of humankind. The whole thing was all the more important
because it was a third attempt already. The previous missions, Soyuz 1 and 3, failed
to complete their task (docking with Soyuz 2), so the hopes were high this time around. First, on January 14, Soyuz 4 was launched
into orbit with one man on board: Vladimir Shatalov. He was to wait for the second spacecraft and
help its crew with the docking. Soyuz 5 came the following day with three
men on board, and the mission began in earnest. It was the first space flight for all four
of the cosmonauts, which made their responsibility even higher. As Soyuz 5 was approaching its sister craft,
the preparations were already underway on both ships. It wasn’t until the day after, however,
that the docking took place. Everyone was holding their breaths as the
world watched the two spacecrafts connecting, slowly but steadily. Soyuz 4, which was the active craft in the
mission, maneuvered carefully and gave instructions to the other ship’s crew so that everything
went smoothly. All communications except those between them
went silent. It was just too important to fail once again. And then, at 8.20 a.m., the crafts linked
together. The mission was a success. As the principal Soviet news agency put it,
that was the first experimental space station ever, with room for four members of the crew. The American Apollo 9 mission repeated this
experience only two months later. Next up, though, was probably the most intrepid
part of the whole endeavor. Two members of the Soyuz 5 crew, engineers
Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov, were to walk through the stretch of open space
between the crafts and board Soyuz 4, joining its commander. It was not only part of their current mission,
but also a training element for the prospective Moon landing. For this walk, the engineers put on their
state-of-the-art space suits, helped by Commander Boris Volynov, the third crew member of the
same space craft. The suits were specifically designed for the
Soyuz missions, but because of different problems during the first two attempts, their use was
delayed until 1969. And finally, their day of glory had come. Commander Volynov checked the suits of his
men and went down to the descent module. He was the one to stay on Soyuz 5 and return
to Earth, which he did in a most remarkable fashion — but I’ll tell you about it in
a minute. First, he checked if everything was okay for
the last time. Then he depressurized the module the engineers
were in. There was no coming back for them now. Moscow television covered everything that
happened on board and brought it live to the Soviet citizens. Khrunov was the first to get out, leaving
the module while it was flying over South America, unable to communicate with the ground
by radio. His walk wasn’t long, but suddenly he noticed
that one of his oxygen lines got tangled. Yeliseyev, who went next, had to help his
partner. Together, the two cosmonauts solved the problem
and continued on to the waiting spacecraft. There was one thing they didn’t know yet,
however: because of the incident, Yeliseyev forgot to install a video camera outside the
hatch of the orbital module. Unfortunately, this meant there would be no
footage of the spacewalk. There was still a video transmission, though,
and despite its poor quality, scoresc of miles below, the whole country watched as the two
space engineers walked through the vacuum to make a historical moment. And when they finished their transfer and
locked the hatch of Soyuz 4 behind them, everyone on the ground gave a standing ovation. It was a complete success. No one in the whole world had done before
what the brave cosmonauts achieved that day. On board Soyuz 4, Commander Shatalov met his
colleagues with open arms, and they gave him newspapers, letters, and telegrams issued
after his ascent to the orbit to prove that it was all true — the connection and spacewalk
did take place. All of this was recorded on video and broadcast
to Earth — now in best quality possible. All in all, the two spacecraft stayed connected
for 4 hours 35 minutes, after which Commander Volynov pulled away. He was scheduled to descend on January 18,
a day after the Soyuz 4 crew. The thing is, Soyuz 4 had more fuel and more
people on board now, so it had to re-enter the atmosphere and land earlier. Volynov’s arrival was thus delayed. Shatalov, Khrunov, and Yeliseyev directed
their spacecraft towards the Earth on the morning of January 17. During the whole descent, Commander Shatalov
was live, giving commentary on the flight for everyone to see. Once again, it was the first feat of this
kind in history. At 9.53 a.m., Soyuz 4 fell through a blizzard
into the snowy steppes of Kazakhstan, safe and sound. Within minutes, a rescue helicopter came,
and all three space crew members were carried off to safety. On the ground, everyone at the control center
was celebrating. The mission was a huge success so far, and
no one doubted that nothing could go wrong. Only Commander Volynov remained behind, but
after the successful landing of the Soyuz 4 descent module, there was little worry about
his well-being. He never lost contact with the Earth, and
so nobody could’ve predicted what was going to happen next. And that was horrifying. Volynov started his re-entry already not in
a normal way. For some reason, he was unable to complete
orientation of his spacecraft for retrofire, which is a sort of a space braking system. After several futile attempts, the command
center scheduled an automatic retrofire to help the cosmonaut get back to Earth. That did help… but Volynov’s ordeal had
only just begun. Six seconds after the retrofire, the descent
module of the spacecraft should’ve been detached from the instrument module with the
help of a controlled explosion. After that, Volynov should’ve bulleted through
the atmosphere in a bell-shaped capsule. Its bottom had an especially thick layer of
protective material. It should’ve partly melted because of all
the friction, but the cosmonaut inside would’ve remained healthy. This was how it should have happened. What actually went down was absolutely different. The blast didn’t disconnect the two modules,
and Volynov’s capsule re-entered the atmosphere with the wrong side. It was the side where the hatch was located,
and it had only 1 inch of protection. By all calculations, the friction was bound
to burn through at least 3 inches of the material. When he realized what was happening, Volynov
thought it was the end of him. For the next harrowing half hour, he watched
and felt how the insane pressure and heat destroyed the capsule around him. He knew the protective layer wouldn’t last
long, but kept reporting his status into the voice recorder. As the flames engulfed the module from the
outside, the temperature inside kept rising. At some point, the heat started destroying
the hatch, and toxic smoke filled the cabin. Then, a thundering clap made Volynov start:
it was the explosion of the propellant tanks in the instrument module. His whole world was now concentrated in a
small, claustrophobic space that was rapidly falling apart. But then a miracle happened. The struts connecting the two modules finally
snapped, and the capsule, pulled by its heavier side, tumbled over and faced the atmospheric
rampage with the protected flank, as was intended. Volynov was saved by wild chance. This wasn’t the end of it either, though. The tumble sent the module flying astray,
and the parachutes opened only in part because their lines got entangled. So instead of falling more or less peacefully
on the ground, the capsule with a man inside dropped like a rock from the sky. And finally, to add insult to injury, the
soft-landing system didn’t work correctly either. When the module hit the ground, the impact
sent Volynov flying into the wall opposite him, breaking several of his teeth. Soyuz 5 landed almost 350 miles away from
its intended landing point. At first, Volynov could only lie inside the
capsule and thank the good fortune for being alive. But the temperature outside was freezing,
and he knew it would take the rescuers several hours to get to him. So he got up, located a column of smoke in
the distance, and walked there until he reached some peasant’s house. The owner took him in, and together they waited
for the rescue party. When they came at last, Volynov looked at
the men arriving to pick him up, and only asked, “Is my hair gray?” That’s one brave spaceman! Hey, if you learned something new today, then
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