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Voskhod - 2
Voskhod 2 was a Soviet manned space mission in
March 1965. Vostok-based Voskhod 3KD spacecraft with two crew
members on board, Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov, was equipped
with an inflatable airlock. It established another milestone in
space exploration when Alexei Leonov became the first person to
leave the spacecraft in a specialized spacesuit to conduct a 12
minute "spacewalk".
Position Cosmonaut
Commander Pavel Belyayev
First spaceflight
Pilot Alexey Leonov
First spaceflight
Backup crew
Position Cosmonaut
Commander Dmitri Zaikin
Pilot Yevgeni Khrunov
Reserve crew
Position Cosmonaut
Commander Viktor Gorbatko
Pilot Pyotr Kolodin
Mission parameters
* Mass: 5,682 kg (12,530 lb)
* Apogee: 475 km (295 mi)
* Perigee: 167 km (104 mi)
* Inclination: 64.8°
* Period: 90.9 min
Space walk
* Leonov - EVA 1 - March 18, 1965
o 08:28:13 UTC: The Voskhod 2 airlock is depressurized by
Leonov.
o 08:32:54 UTC: Leonov opens the Voskhod 2 airlock hatch.
o 08:34:51 UTC: EVA 1 start - Leonov leaves airlock.
o 08:47:00 UTC: EVA 1 end - Leonov reenters airlock.
o 08:48:40 UTC: Hatch on the airlock is closed and secured by
Leonov.
o 08:51:54 UTC: Leonov begins to repressurize the airlock.
o Duration: 12 minutes
The Voskhod 3KD spacecraft had an inflatable airlock extended in
orbit. Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov donned a space suit and left the
spacecraft while the other cosmonaut of the two-man crew, Pavel
Belyayev, remained inside. Leonov began his spacewalk 90 minutes
into the mission at the end of the first orbit. Cosmonaut Leonov's
spacewalk lasted 12 minutes and 9 seconds
(08:34:51–08:47:00hrs UTC), beginning over north-central
Africa (northern Sudan/southern Egypt), and ending over eastern
Siberia.
Voskhod 2 spacecraft
The Voskhod 2 spacecraft is a Vostok spacecraft
with a backup, solid fuel retrorocket, attached atop the descent
module. The ejection seat was removed and two seats were added, (at
a 90-degree angle relative to the Vostok crew seats position). An
inflatable exterior airlock was also added to the descent module
opposite the entry hatch. After use, the airlock was jettisoned.
There was no provision for crew escape in the event of a launch or
landing emergency. A solid fuel braking rocket was also added to
the parachute lines to provide for a softer landing at touchdown.
This was necessary because, unlike the Vostok, the crew lands with
the Voskhod descent module.
Though Leonov was able to complete his spacewalk
successfully, both that task and the overall mission were plagued
with problems. After his 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the
Voskhod, Leonov found that his suit had stiffened to the point
where he could not re-enter the airlock. He was forced to bleed off
some of his suit's pressure, in order to be able to bend the
joints, Leonov did not report his action on the radio to avoid
alarming others, but Soviet state radio and television had earlier
stopped their live broadcasts from the spacecraft when the mission
experienced difficulties. The two crewmembers subsequently
experienced difficulty in sealing the hatch properly, followed by a
troublesome re-entry in which malfunction of the automatic landing
system forced the use of its manual backup. The spacecraft was so
cramped that the two cosmonauts, both wearing spacesuits, could not
return to their seats to restore the ship's center of gravity for
46 seconds after orienting the ship for reentry and a landing near
Perm. The orbital module did not properly disconnect from the
landing module, causing the spacecraft to spin wildly until the
modules disconnected at 100 km.
The delay of 46 seconds caused the spacecraft to
land 386 km from the intended landing zone in an inhospitable part
of the Ural Mountains, in Siberia. Although mission control had no
idea where the spacecraft had landed or whether Leonov and Belyayev
had survived, their families were told that they were resting after
having been recovered. The two men were both familiar with the
harsh climate and knew that bears and wolves, made aggressive by
mating season, lived in the taiga; the spacecraft carried a pistol
and "plenty of ammunition". Although aircraft quickly located the
cosmonauts, the area was so heavily forested that helicopters could
not land. Night arrived, the temperature fell to below -22 degrees
Fahrenheit, and the spacecraft's hatch had been blown open by
explosive bolts. Leonov and Belyayev had to strip naked, wring out
the sweat from their underwear, and redon it and the inner linings
of their spacesuits to stay warm. A rescue party arrived on skis
the next day with food and hot water, and chopped wood for a fire
and a log cabin. After a more comfortable second night in the
forest, the cosmonauts skied to a waiting helicopter several
kilometers away and flew to Perm, then Baikonur.
General Kamanin's diary later gave the landing
location of the Voskhod 2, Saransk (ball), as: "54 deg 12 min
North, 45 deg 10 min East." Also according to General Kamanin's
diary, a commander of one of the search helicopters reported
finding Voskhod 2, "On the forest road between the villages of
Sorokovaya and Shchuchino, about 30 kilometers southwest of the
town of Berezniki, I see the red parachute and the two cosmonauts.
there is deep snow all around ..."
The capsule is currently on display at the museum of RKK
Energiya in Korolyov, near Moscow.
Voskhod 2 EVA details
Airlock and spacesuit as used
On reaching orbit in Voskhod 2, Leonov and
Belyayev attached the EVA backpack to Leonov’s Berkut
(“Golden Eagle”) space suit, a modified Vostok Sokol-1
intravehicular (IV) suit. The white metal EVA backpack provided 45
minutes of oxygen for breathing and cooling. Oxygen vented through
a relief valve into space, carrying away heat, moisture, and
exhaled carbon dioxide. The space suit pressure could be set at
either 40.6 kPa (5.89 psi) or 27.40 kPa (3.974 psi).
Belyayev then deployed and pressurized the Volga
inflatable airlock. The airlock was necessary because Vostok and
Voskhod avionics were cooled with cabin air and would overheat if
the capsule was depressurized for the EVA. The Volga airlock was
designed, built, and tested in nine months in mid-1964. At launch,
Volga fitted over Voskhod 2’s hatch, extending 74 cm (29 in)
beyond the spacecraft's hull. The airlock comprised a 1.2 m (3.9
ft) wide metal ring fitted over Voskhod 2’s inward-opening
hatch, a double-walled fabric airlock tube with a deployed length
of 2.50 m (8.2 ft), and a 1.2 m (3.9 ft) wide metal upper ring
around the 65 cm (26 in) wide inward-opening airlock hatch.
Volga’s deployed internal volume was 2.50 m3 (88 cu ft).
The fabric airlock tube was made rigid by about
40 airbooms, clustered as three, independent groups. Two groups
sufficed for deployment. The airbooms needed seven minutes to fully
inflate. Four spherical tanks held sufficient oxygen to inflate the
airbooms and pressurize the airlock. Two lights lighted the airlock
interior, and three 16mm cameras — two in the airlock, one
outside on a boom mounted to the upper ring — recorded the
historic first spacewalk.
Belyayev controlled the airlock from inside
Voskhod 2, but a set of backup controls for Leonov was suspended on
bungee cords inside the airlock. Leonov entered Volga, then
Belyayev sealed Voskhod 2 behind him and depressurized the airlock.
Leonov opened Volga’s outer hatch and pushed out to the end
of his 5.35 m (17.6 ft) umbilicus. He later said the umbilicus gave
him tight control of his movements — an observation
purportedly belied by subsequent American spacewalk experience.
Leonov reported looking down and seeing from the Straits of
Gibraltar to the Caspian Sea.
After Leonov returned to his couch, Belyayev
fired pyrotechnic bolts to discard the Volga. Sergei Korolev, Chief
Designer at OKB-1 Design Bureau (now RKK Energia), stated after the
EVA that Leonov could have remained outside for much longer than he
did, while Mstislav Keldysh, “chief theoretician” of
the Soviet space program and President of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, said that the EVA showed that future cosmonauts would
find work in space easy.
The government news agency, TASS, reported that,
“outside the ship and after returning, Leonov feels
well”; however, post-Cold War Russian documents reveal a
different story — that Leonov’s Berkut space suit
ballooned, making bending difficult. Because of this, Leonov was
unable to reach the shutter switch on his thigh for his
chest-mounted camera. He could not take pictures of Voskhod 2, nor
was he able to recover the camera mounted on Volga which recorded
his EVA for posterity. After 12 minutes Leonov re-entered
Volga.
Recent accounts report Cosmonaut Leonov violated
procedure by entering the airlock head-first, then became stuck
sideways when he turned to close the outer hatch, forcing him to
flirt with decompression sickness (the “bends”) by
lowering the suit pressure so he could bend to free himself.
Recently, Leonov said that he had a suicide pill to swallow had he
been unable to re-enter the Voskhod 2, and Belyayev been forced to
abandon him in orbit.
Doctors reported that Leonov nearly suffered
heatstroke — his core body temperature increased by 1.8°C
(3.2°F) in 20 minutes; Leonov said he was up to his knees in sweat,
which sloshed in the suit. In an interview published in the Soviet
Military Review in 1980, Leonov downplayed his difficulties, saying
that “building manned orbital stations and exploring the
Universe are inseparably linked with man’s activity in open
space. There is no end of work in this field.”
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