Qualla: Voskhod 2

Voskhod 2: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reubenbarton, translation: Badseed., Public domain. Alexei Leonov looked down and saw the Earth from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Caspian Sea. He was floating at the end of a 5.35-meter umbilical cord, 500 kilometers above the planet, the first human being ever to walk in open space. It was March 18, 1965, and everything about the Voskhod 2 mission had been improvised -- the inflatable airlock designed and built in nine months, the spacecraft so cramped that both cosmonauts could not reach their seats during reentry. What Soviet state media reported as a triumph of engineering was, behind the propaganda, a twelve-minute brush with death that nearly stranded Leonov in orbit with a suicide pill as his last option.

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Image: Reubenbarton, translation: Badseed. | Public domain

Voskhod 2: Twelve Minutes Outside

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Latitude, CC BY 3.0. Liftoff from Baikonur occurred at 07:00 GMT. Ninety minutes later, at the end of the first orbit, Leonov depressurized the Volga inflatable airlock and opened the outer hatch. He pushed out over north-central Africa, somewhere above the border of Sudan and Egypt, tethered to the ...

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Image: Latitude | CC BY 3.0

Voskhod 2: The Suit That Swelled

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USSR Post, Public domain. In the vacuum of space, Leonov's Berkut spacesuit ballooned. The internal pressure, no longer countered by atmospheric pressure, inflated the suit until it stiffened beyond the point where Leonov could bend his joints. He could not reach the shutter switch on his thigh for his ch...

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Image: USSR Post | Public domain

Voskhod 2: A Landing Nobody Expected

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stolbovsky, CC BY-SA 3.0. The problems did not end with the airlock. The automatic landing system malfunctioned, forcing Belyayev to use the manual backup. The spacecraft was so small that both cosmonauts, still in their spacesuits, could not reach their seats for 46 seconds after orienting for reentry --...

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Image: Stolbovsky | CC BY-SA 3.0

Voskhod 2: Two Nights in the Taiga

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Мастер Снов, Public domain. A helicopter spotted the capsule about four hours after touchdown, but the forest was too dense to land. The hatch had been blown open by explosive bolts, and the heating system had failed while the fans ran at full blast. Warm clothes and supplies were dropped from the air. That...

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Image: Мастер Снов | Public domain