Star commemorating the successful transfer of cosmonauts in space from the Soyuz 5 to the Soyuz 4 spacecraft in Moscow, Russia
Soyuz 4 was launched on January 14, 1969. On board was cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov on his first flight. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crew members from that spacecraft, and return to Earth. The previous three Soyuz flights were also dock attempts but all had failed for various reasons. The two spacecraft docked on January 16, the first time two manned spacecraft had docked (Apollo 9 would do the same in March of the same year). The two craft possessed only a primitive probe (Soyuz 4) and drogue (Soyuz 5) docking assembly. A connecting tunnel for the docking mechanism had not yet been developed, which prevented a simple internal transfer between the craft. This required the two transferring cosmonauts to spacewalk from one vehicle to the other. Aboard Soyuz 5, Yevgeny Khrunov and Aleksei Yeliseyev immediately began preparing for their EVA. Boris Volynov, who would remain aboard Soyuz 5, filmed them donning their Yastreb space suits. On their 35th revolution of Earth the two cosmonauts exited the spacecraft for the second Soviet spacewalk. One of Khrunov's lines became tangled and he accidentally closed the tumbler of his suit ventilator. This distracted Yeliseyev who did not set up the movie camera on the orbital module before exiting the spacecraft. As such there is no film of the historic EVA, only a poor video transmission. One hour later the two were greeted by Shatalov after the repressurisation of the Soyuz 4 orbital module, which also acted as an airlock. Soyuz 4 and 5 separated after 4 hours and 35 minutes docked together. Soyuz 4 re-entered the atmosphere and landed 100 kilometres (62 mi) southwest of Karaganda on January 17, 1969.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Monument To The Conquerors Of Space, Prospekt Mira 111, 129164 Moscow, Russia, Eastern Europe
Photo credit: © DE ROCKER / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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