The Soviet Union's nearly disastrous spacewalk

Humanity's first spacewalk nearly ended in tragedy with a series of serious incidents.

The first spacewalk in history. Video: YouTube.

The moment cosmonaut Alexey Leonov made the first spacewalk in 1965 became a brilliant mark in human history. This event also marked the Soviet Union's great success in the space race with the United States. However, a series of incidents occurred that nearly turned the trip into a tragedy, according toCurious Droid.

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly into space. After that, with 6 successful missions to space with the Vostok (Orient) spacecraft from 1961–1963, the Soviet Union became the leader in the space race.

The Soviets were also under pressure to maintain this success in their next space program. They planned to redesign the Vostok spacecraft as the Voskhod spacecraft, which means "Dawn" in Russian.

At the same time, the US was working on the Gemini project to put more people in space, and astronaut Ed White was also training to perform the first spacewalk. Sergei Korolev, the head of the Russian space program, said they could still beat the US in this race.

The Voskhod spacecraft was redesigned from a single seater to a three-seater. The capsule was so cramped that the astronauts had to follow a strict diet to fit in.

Engineers considered every way to save weight and space inside the spacecraft. As a result, the ejection seat mechanism was also removed, meaning that if something went wrong within two and a half minutes of launch, the astronauts would not be able to escape. The spacecraft also mounted a larger R-7 rocket booster to take humans to the furthest point in space at that time.

Experts complete the Voskhod ship. Photo: Pinterest.

The first flight of the Voskhod spacecraft in October 1964 was successful. The Voskhod 2 spacecraft was completed at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan and launched on the morning of March 18, 1965, setting records for speed and altitude in sending humans into space.

Once in orbit, cosmonaut Pavel Belyayev began pumping air into the pressurized capsule for seven minutes, before Alexei Leonov climbed out to perform humanity's first spacewalk, viewing the Earth from an altitude of 475 km.

The camera Leonov carried showed the cellyou seem very comfortableduring his historic spacewalk. But in reality, his first steps in space were not so smooth. Leonov pushed himself out of the spacecraft and immediately somersaulted in the air, before coming to a stop thanks to a 5-meter-long safety cord.

Minutes later, he noticed that his spacesuit was bulging abnormally in the vacuum of space. His hands and feet were slipping out of his gloves and boots. Leonov realized that he might not be able to get back into the cramped pressurized compartment of the spacecraft. He had only five minutes before the spacecraft entered darkness, plunging everything outside into total darkness.

Without reporting the incident to ground control, Leonov decided to slowly release some of the air in his protective suit to halve the pressure inside, even though he risked suffering the consequences of a sudden decompression.

The maneuver worked, and the suit returned to its original size. Leonov returned to the pressure chamber, but entered head first instead of feet first. As a result, he struggled to turn around in the cramped chamber. The effort caused his body temperature to rise to the point of heatstroke.

Leonov finally made it safely into the capsule. Humanity witnessed the first spacewalk and ground control sent congratulations to the crew. Leonov later revealed in an interview that he had a suicide pill in his spacesuit in case he could not return to the spacecraft.

Alexey Leonov successfully completed the first spacewalk. Photo: YouTube.

But the danger was not over. When Belyayev released the air from the pressurized compartment, he found that the door would not close completely. The ship's automatic control system tried to compensate by increasing the oxygen pressure in the compartment.

In an oxygen-rich environment, any spark can cause a catastrophic fire, as happened to Valentin Bondarenko during his cosmonaut training and later killed the entire crew of Apollo 1 in 1967.

Fortunately, there was no fire on board Voskhod 2 at the time, and the cosmonauts worked to lower the temperature and humidity, slowing the increase in oxygen pressure.

But that wasn’t all. The Voskhod spacecraft was equipped with an automatic re-entry system, but it failed, forcing the crew to manually re-enter the system, something no one had ever done before and leaving them with little control over where they would land. They decided to attempt a landing in the Taiga, a vast, desolate forest region in northern Russia.

The spacecraft was so cramped that after reentry began, it took the two astronauts 46 seconds to get back in their seats and restore the spacecraft’s center of gravity. That 46-second delay changed the trajectory of the spacecraft and caused it to land 386 kilometers (240 miles) off course. When Voskhod 2 began its reentry, the capsule failed to separate, causing the spacecraft to roll over until the tether connecting the capsule to the capsule caught fire.

Rescue teams meet the crew after the Voskhod 2 spacecraft landed. Photo: Arquapetrarca.

During its descent, the Voskhod 2 passed right over Moscow’s Red Square. “We can land there if you want,” Leonov joked to Belyayev. The spacecraft then flew further north, finally touching down at 4:02 p.m. on March 19 in a snow-covered forest in the Ural Mountains.

Because the landing site was off course, ground control had no idea where the crew were. The astronauts had to spend the night in the jungle at -25 degrees Celsius while waiting for the center to locate the emergency radio transmission.

Leonov said his spacesuit was soaked with sweat and he lost 6kg during the flight. The cosmonauts wrung out their clothes and kept an eye out for wolves until rescuers arrived the next day. But the forest was so dense that the helicopter had to land 9km away. Rescuers skied to the spacecraft, carrying warm clothes, food and cameras.

Although the world hailed the mission as a success, a series of mishaps could have turned the mission into a disaster, and that is why the Soviet Union decided to cancel the program. Leonov's famous spacewalk also ended the Soviet Union's lead in the space race.

According to VNE