Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing
200 km southwest of Kustanay / 25 km southeast of Zhitikara.
Soyuz 5
docked with
Soyuz 4, which had the
active part. The two spacecrafts were electrical and mechanically connected,
but there was no direct way from one spaceship to the other. It was the first
docking of manned spacecrafts. The Soyuz 5 cosmonauts Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyev entered the
Soyuz 4 in a spacewalk on January 16, 1969 (0h 37m). Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyev put on their Yastreb ("hawk") suits in the Soyuz 5
orbital module with aid from
Commander
Boris
Volynov. Yastreb suit design commenced in 1965, shortly after
Aleksei
Leonov’s difficult
EVA.
Aleksei
Leonov served as consultant for the design process, which was
completed during 1966. Suit fabrication and testing occurred in 1967, but the
fatal
Soyuz 1 accident in April of that
year and docking difficulties on the joint Soyuz 2-
Soyuz 3 mission delayed its use in space
until
Soyuz 4-Soyuz 5. To prevent the
suit ballooning, Yastreb featured a pulley-and-cable articulation system. Wide
metal rings around the gray nylon canvas undersuit's upper arms served as
anchors for the upper body articulation system. Yastreb had a regenerative life
support system in a rectangular white metal box placed on the chest and abdomen
to facilitate movement through Soyuz hatchways. Boris
Volynov checked out Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyev’s life support and communications systems
before returning to the descent module, sealing the hatch, and depressurizing
the orbital module. Yevgeni
Khrunov went out first, transferring to the
Soyuz 4 orbital module while the docked
spacecraft were out of radio contact with the Soviet Union over South America.
Aleksei
Yeliseyev transferred while the spacecraft were over the
Soviet Union.
After pressurisation of the
Soyuz 4 capsule they were greeted by
cosmonaut Vladimir
Shatalov in the
Soyuz
4 capsule. The spacewalkers delivered newspapers, letters, and telegrams
printed after Vladimir
Shatalov lifted off to help prove that the transfer took
place.
Soyuz 4 and 5 separated
after 4 hours and 35 minutes docked together. All three cosmonauts landed with
the
Soyuz 4 spacecraft. Scientific
(medical and biological) and technical experiments were also performed, but all
in all it were tests of lunar landing techniques. The mission proved it was
possible to perform the activities that would be needed on a Soviet lunar
landing. The Russian plan called for a lone cosmonaut to land on the moon,
return to lunar orbit, then make a spacewalk back from the landing craft to
orbiting spacecraft after docking. This was because there was no internal
tunnel between the two craft as found on the American Apollo
CSM
and
LM.
Boris
Volynov remained on Soyuz 5. During the re-entry the service
module failed to separate after retrofire resulting in nose-first re-entry,
which would have meant a sure death of the cosmonaut. In the last moment the
bolts connecting the service module to the reentry capsule finally burned
through and the capsule turned around, heat shield forward, just before the
forward hatch melted. All capsule propellant was exhausted and the cosmonaut
made a 9-g uncontrolled reentry, landing hundreds of kilometres short. There
was one final problem in store for Boris
Volynov when the parachute cables partially tangled. It was
one of the hardest landings in space history and Boris
Volynov broke his jaw and lost several teeth. The local
temperature was -38 °C (-36 °F), and knowing that it would be many
hours before rescue teams could reach him, Boris
Volynov abandoned the capsule and walked for several
kilometers to find shelter at a local peasant's house.
The crew were to
meet Leonid Brezhnev during a lavish ceremony at the Kremlin, but this was
ruined by an attempted assassination of the Soviet leader. A man shot eight
times at the motorcade but aimed at the car containing Georgi
Beregovoy, Aleksei
Leonov, Andriyan
Nikolayev, and Valentina
Tereshkova. They were unharmed but Brezhnev's car was forced
to speed away past the waiting
Soyuz 4
and Soyuz 5 crews on the podium.
