Voskhod 2
| Voskhod 2 | |||||
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| Mission name | Voskhod 2 | ||||
| Spacecraft mass | 5682 kg | ||||
| Crew size | 2 | ||||
| Call sign | Алмаз (Almaz - "Diamond") | ||||
| Launch date | 07:00:00, March 18, 1965 (UTC) Gagarin's Start |
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| Spacewalk begin | 08:34:51, March 18, 1965 (UTC) over north central Africa |
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| Spacewalk end | 08:47:00, March 18, 1965 (UTC) over eastern Siberia |
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| Landing | 09:02:17, March 19, 1965 (UTC) |
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| Mission duration | 1d/02:02:17 | ||||
| Number of orbits | 17 | ||||
| Apogee | 475 km | ||||
| Perigee | 167 km | ||||
| Orbital period | 90.9 min | ||||
| Orbital inclination | 64.8° | ||||
| Crew photo Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov outside Voskhod 2 |
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Voskhod 1
Soyuz 1Voskhod 2 (Russian: Восход 2; "Dawn 2") was a Soviet manned space mission in March 1965. It established another space milestone when one of the cosmonauts on board became the first person to "walk in space".
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Crew
Number in parentheses indicates number of spaceflights by each individual prior to and including this mission.
- Pavel Belyayev (1) - Commander
- Alexei Leonov (1) - Pilot
Backup crew
- Dmitri Zaikin - Commander
- Yevgeni Khrunov - Pilot
Reserve crew
- Viktor Gorbatko - Commander
- Pyotr Kolodin - Pilot
Mission highlights
The Voskhod 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 20 minutes (08:30–08:50hrs UTC), beginning over north-central Africa (northern Sudan-southern Egypt), ending over eastern Siberia.
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.
Despite this spectacular feat, the mission was plagued with problems. After his ten minutes outside the Voskhod, Leonov found that his suit had stiffened to the point where he could not re-enter the airlock. Leonov worked around this by allowing some of his suit's pressure to bleed off, making it easier for him to bend the joints. After coming back inside, there were problems with sealing the hatch properly, and this was followed by a troublesome re-entry, when the automatic landing system had malfunctioned and the manual system had to be used. Finally, the crew landed in an inhospitable and heavily-wooded part of the Ural Mountains and spent a night surrounded by wolves while waiting for their recovery team.
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 timeline
- 08:28:13 UTC - The Voskhod 2 airlock is depressurized by Leonov.
- 08:32:54 UTC - Leonov opens the Voskhod 2 airlock hatch.
- 08:34.51 UTC - EVA begins as Leonov leaves Voskhod 2 airlock.
- 08:47:00 UTC - EVA ends as Leonov reenters airlock. 12 minute EVA.
- 08:48:40 UTC - Voskhod 2 EVA hatch on the airlock is closed and secured by Leonov.
- 08:51:54 UTC - Leonov begins to repressurize the Voskhod 2 airlock.
Voskhod 2 EVA details
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 kilopascals (5.88psi) or 27.40kPa (3.97psi). [1]
Belyayev then deployed and pressurized the Volga inflatable airlock. The airlock was necessary, because Vostok and Voskhod avionics were cooled with the cabin air, and would overheat if the capsule was depressurized for the EVA. The Volga airlock was designed, built, and tested in 9 months in mid-1964. At launch, Volga fitted over Voskhod 2’s hatch, extending 74cm (30in.) beyond the spacecraft's hull. The airlock comprised a metal ring 1.2m- (4.0ft) wide fitted over Voskhod 2’s inward-opening hatch; a double-walled fabric airlock tube with a deployed length of 2.50m (8.25ft); and a metal upper ring 1.2m- (4.0ft) wide around the inward-opening airlock hatch 65cm (26in.) wide. Volga’s deployed internal volume was 2.50m³ (88.0ft³).
The fabric airlock tube was made rigid by about 40 airbooms, clustered as three, independent groups. Two groups sufficed for deployment. The airbooms needed 7.0 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 15.35m (50.40ft) 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 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 min 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 dysbarism (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.[2]
Doctors reported that Leonov nearly suffered heatstroke — his core body temperature increased 1.8°C (3.1°F) in 20 minutes; Leonov said he was up to his knees in sweat, it 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.”
See also
- Extra-vehicular activity
- List of spacewalks
Notes
- ↑ This section is copied from Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology by Portree and Treviño, pp. 15-16.
- ↑ Portree and Treviño, p. 16.
References
- Portree, David S. F.; Robert C. Treviño (October 1997). "Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology" (PDF). Monographs in Aerospace History Series #7. NASA History Office. Retrieved on 2008-01-05.
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