43 years ago, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first human to step into outer space. And, it would seem, there is not a single detail of this event that could have escaped journalists during this time. Everyone found out: how the pioneer’s spacesuit swelled from high pressure, and how the cosmonaut almost lost his video camera, and how already on the ground, in the forest, he and crew commander Pavel Belyaev had to wait two days for rescuers to find them ...

Stop! The last fact, which was exaggerated by the press and confirmed in an interview by Alexei Arkhipovich himself, does not seem to be entirely reliable. The other day, “MK” received a letter from a pilot who, back in 1965, participated in that search expedition. "I can not stand it any longer. I have to tell you how it really was in order to protect the honor of my squadron,” wrote 73-year-old Vladimir Khomkolov. - We did not look for Leonov and Belyaev for two days! They were taken direction immediately after landing on the evening of March 19, and on the same evening helicopters delivered foresters to help them.” "MK" invited Vladimir Yegorovich to the editorial office, and he told us all the details of an unforgettable epic - the search for cosmonaut heroes.

A special unit for the search and evacuation of spacecraft and astronauts was formed in 1963 and was based at the airfield of the city of Yuzhnouralsk in the Chelyabinsk region. The personnel of a separate helicopter squadron (where, in fact, Vladimir Khomkolov served as a pilot-navigator) consisted of professionals.

“Usually, we flew to a given landing area for astronauts even before their launch,” recalls Vladimir Khomkolov. - Moreover, the names of future heroes were not told to us until the moment when TASS officially reported this. So it was in 1965. A pair of our Mi-4 helicopters flew into the zone of the proposed landing, not far from Kurgan, on March 12, 5 days before Leonov and Belyaev took off. The pilots flew around, studied the area in detail. On the landing day of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, which was scheduled for March 19, my commander Lev Maslov and I were on the alert from 10 in the morning. The weather in the Chelyabinsk region was wonderful. Well, we think that now, according to the plan (at 10.55), our cosmonauts will land, we, as usual, will spot them at the 1-2 km mark and meet them ... According to the rules, the pilots were not allowed to immediately run up to the descending vehicle - strong radiation could come from it. But we always hurried to the balloon together with the rescuers (they flew with us all the time)...

However, the pilots did not see the ball of the descent vehicle either at 10.55 or at 11.00. The radio was deafening with its silence. Colleagues of the helicopter pilots were also silent - the pilots of the Il-14 aircraft, loitering at a 4-kilometer mark, and the An-12, which flew even higher.

In the end, everyone, without saying a word to each other, guessed - Leonov and Belyaev did not have time to land in a given area and went on to the next turn. And this means that the landing is delayed for another 1.5 hours and will no longer take place where it was planned. The helicopter pilots looked into the water - soon the ether came to life and ordered the planes to fly in the direction of Perm. The crew of the Voskhod, whose automation failed, controlled the ship manually and had to land near the city of Berezniki, Perm Region.

“Well, Pasha, fuck space!” - Leonov said in the hearts of his commander, when their apparatus plopped into the impassable taiga. Snow cover - to the waist. From above, a huge parachute dome flutters in the wind, stuck on two 40-meter firs.

“But soon our Il-14 was already circling over them,” says the former navigator. - Leonov and Belyaev could not help but hear and see the plane, the pilots immediately established radio contact, the astronauts were informed that they had been found and help would be sent soon. Of course, ideally, our helicopters should have delivered the assistants. But we did not really keep up with the Ilams. Instead of us, a civilian Mi-1 was raised from the Perm airfield.

Two foresters were lowered from this helicopter on a special cable in the landing area. Having skied three or four kilometers through the taiga, the old-timers found themselves next to our heroes at 17:00. That is, a few hours after landing. The foresters helped the tired astronauts make a fire, supported morally during the first night in the taiga.

Well, the next morning, March 20, Maslov's crew arrived in time, as well as two more helicopters, controlled by commanders Baranevich and Avdeev.

“First of all, we dropped two sets of warm flight clothes, consisting of fur jackets, trousers and high fur boots, to our “wintering” ones,” the pilot recalls. - Then they were periodically supplied with dry rations, which were taken from the Perm flight canteen. And once I witnessed such a monologue of our colonel Sibiryakov: “So, we are trying for them here, we carry expensive sausage, we carry Krakow sausage, at 3.60 per kilogram, but, you see, they are tired of our sausage! Give them borscht!” Of course, all this was said in jest. The astronauts really yearned for normal food. And soon our crew was sent for hot. In the dining room, on special order, they cooked excellent borsch for them and poured them into a 10-liter army thermos. But bad luck came out with that borscht. At first we wanted to lower it on a cable. And then they decided to dump it in the snow. "What will happen to him?" we thought. But they did not take into account that there would be a stump under the snow. Our thermos cracked on it, half of the hot poured out ... Nevertheless, we still received words of gratitude from the astronauts for the delicious borscht.

Meanwhile, the leadership was deciding how to evacuate the conquerors of the universe from the taiga? At first they wanted to “take on a cable” and lift them out of the forest captivity through the air. However, this idea was later abandoned. “After all, people are tired,” they said from above, “but how will the cable swing and hit someone on a spruce?” As a result, they decided to bring the astronauts on skis.

The withdrawal began on 21 March. At first, the path lay to the plot, on which the foresters were initially dropped by the helicopter. Two days before, the locals had skied a good track on this 3-kilometer stretch.

“We must pay tribute to Leonov - he was cheerful, he supported everyone with jokes all the time,” recalls Khomkolov. His commander looked more tired. Our helicopter was already waiting for them at the plot. By the way, in order for him to sit down, the foresters had to cut down a lot of trees. The helicopter needed a platform with a diameter of at least one hundred meters.

So, having taken the astronauts from one site, they were taken to a more distant one, where the headquarters was set up and a more capacious Mi-6 helicopter was waiting.

- On it, our wards were taken to the “mainland”. It’s good that before landing, among others, I managed to get an autograph from Leonov, ”recalls the pilot. - Since there was no paper, I asked him to sign directly on the official ID, on a blank page.
As for the ship, it was evacuated from the landing site as early as March 22. The operation was led by the squadron commander Lieutenant Colonel Kobzar. The two-ton balloon was attached to the 40-meter cable of the Mi-6 helicopter and lifted into the air. His flight was seen by all the locals. But hardly anyone then guessed that until quite recently this strange blank was the only refuge for space pioneers in the cold and inhospitable taiga.

“Suddenly, SP (Korolev) literally flew out of the reception room, followed by Feoktistov. Seeing me, SP said:
- Okay, let's go with us!
Asking questions on the go was useless. We passed along the transition to the new 67th building.
...
Korolev approached Tereshkova's descent vehicle and through the open hatch began silently carefully examining the internal layout. Then he quickly turned to me and Feoktistov and said:
- Here's a task for you. Instead of one, three should be placed here.
This command was the beginning of the reworking of Vostok into Voskhod. Decisions had to be made truly revolutionary. It is impossible to accommodate three in space suits. Without spacesuits with sin in half, in cramped conditions and not offended, through the efforts of Feoktistov, it was possible. "B.E. Chertok" Rockets and People.

Painting by A. A. Leonov.

The data available to Soviet intelligence about the development by the Americans and preparations for a manned spacewalk made it necessary to seriously rush to create an apparatus that would allow America to get ahead both in the flight of the first multi-seat spacecraft and in the first extravehicular activity. Thus, the Voskhod spacecraft was born.

Boris Evseevich Chertok in his memoirs "Rockets and People" not without reason mentions the transformation of the East into Voskhod. The new ship actually differed little from its predecessor: the same spherical descent vehicle, the same layout (pressurized SA + non-pressurized instrument-aggregate compartment), the same dimensions. The main difference was inside the descent vehicle: to put three people into a balloon, originally designed for one - it was necessary to try. Soviet engineers wanted to get ahead of the Americans not only in terms of timing, but also in terms of technology: American Geminis are being developed with two seats, which means our ship will be three-seater, Geminis provide for complete depressurization for EVA, which means we will have a lock.

Installation of the Voskhod spacecraft on the launch vehicle:

They somehow coped with the placement of three cosmonauts, although for this they had to remove the ejection seat and put three ordinary ones in its place, moreover, turn them 90 degrees, which made it impossible to control the ship manually from the seat. When the automation failed at Voskhod-2, Belyaev had to get out of his chair to manually navigate. Leonov at that time held him by the legs. After orienting before turning on the TDU, I had to miss a few seconds while Belyaev returned to his chair, as a result, instead of the hot sunny Kazakh steppe, SA Voskhoda-2 flopped into a snowdrift in the harsh Siberian taiga, where the cosmonauts had to spend several painful days until they were discovered by the search engine. rescue group.

The descent vehicles of Voskhod are now stored in the RKK Energia Museum, where it is not so easy to get, therefore, in the absence of my own photographs, I will use those found on the Internet.
Here is the interior of Voskhod-1:

Photo by I. Marinin.

Three seats are visible (the middle one is shifted down due to the parachute container), as well as the Vzor orientator and the instrument panel, identical to those in the Vostoks.

Here is a diagram taken from the Internet, which shows the main components of the ship and the difference in the placement of seats from the East.

A solid cylinder, attached to the descent vehicle from the front, is striking. This is a backup solid propellant TDU. The fact is that Voskhods were put into a higher orbit than Vostok: 177.5 km * 408 km against Vostok's 180.7 km * 234.6 km, therefore, in the event of a failure of the main TDU, they could not, like Vostok, deorbit by natural deceleration about the upper layers of the atmosphere in a reasonable time.

Another difference of the new ship was the soft landing system (due to the lack of ejection seats, the crew landed inside the SA): a block of solid propellant engines was installed on the central line of the parachute system, which were triggered at the moment the probe touched the ground.

For obvious reasons, there are no photographs of Voskhod-1 in space from the outside, but a film recording from the inside has been preserved:

On Voskhod-2, it was impossible to do without spacesuits, because during the flight the EVA was planned. Therefore, the crew of the second Sunrise consisted of two people. More problems delivered the gateway. It was impossible to integrate it into the ball of the descent vehicle in any way, and placed outside in a separate compartment, it did not fit under the head fairing. The solution has been found. Those who have recently admired the technology of inflatable modules presented as know-how and the test sample of such a module on the ISS should not forget that the experience of using such a design was in Soviet cosmonautics. The inflatable airlock of Voskhod-2, when folded, somehow fit under the fairing, and when deployed it turned into a full-fledged compartment, although, of course, cramped.

Alas, due to a malfunction of the trigger device of the camera installed on Leonov's spacesuit, it was not possible to photograph Voskhod-2 in space from the outside. But there is a photo of Leonov himself in the airlock:

And in the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics, a technological duplicate of the gateway is exhibited, which I photographed:

The original Voskhod-2 descent module is kept in the RKK Energia museum. For clarity, another duplicate of the airlock was attached to it, and even with an astronaut dummy in a spacesuit:

Photo by I. Marinin.

Interior of SA Voskhod-2:

Photo by I. Marinin.

How the world's first extravehicular activity took place can be seen on a video filmed by a movie camera installed on the airlock from the outside:

Curiously, due to the high level of secrecy, the Americans had no idea what the Voskhod ship and its launch vehicle looked like. Therefore, when the film “You Only Live Twice” was filmed, in the episode with the launch of the Soviet ship Voskhod-16, they showed a video recording of the launch of the Titan-2 rocket with the Gemini ship, and Voskhod-16 itself in the film does not look like real Voskhods at all:

And there was actually no Voskhod-16. According to the program, three more flights were planned, during which interesting experiments were planned: a surgical operation on an animal in space flight conditions, an EVA with testing the cosmonaut's knapsack movement system, and the creation of artificial gravity by rotating the bundle of the Voskhod-5 spacecraft and the third stage of the launch vehicle with a cable ( implemented by the Americans during the Gemini program).
But these three flights were canceled and the Voskhod program was closed. The main reason for this was the terrible unreliability of the ship. The absence of an emergency rescue system and the absence of spacesuits in the three-seat version of Voskhod threatened to kill the crew in case of any failure of the launch vehicle or in case of depressurization of the descent vehicle. It was also necessary to transfer all forces to the development of the Soyuz spacecraft for the lunar program.

I do not pretend to the truth, but it is possible that the distraction of attention to the Sunrise was one of the reasons for the loss of the USSR in the lunar race. The American Gemini program was nevertheless carried out as a necessary preparatory stage for the lunar program, and our Voskhod was a completely independent project, the main goal of which was to overtake the Americans in the flight of multi-seat spacecraft and in the first EVA. Yes, in this we won the championship, but we paid for it by flying to the moon.

A feature film dedicated to the Voskhod-2 flight will be released this spring. I look forward to it, I hope the filmmakers will not let you down, and the film will be truthful, interesting and exciting.

How the crew of the Vostok-2 ship was rescued when it landed in the remote Permian taiga

In contact with

Classmates

Vladimir Laktanov

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov leaves the Vostok-2 spacecraft. Photo: TASS newsreel reproduction

Since 1958, the Perm Territory has been manufacturing engines that put spacecraft into orbit. In March 1961, a descent module landed in the south of the Kama region with a dog named Zvezdochka, who had safely returned from near-Earth space just before Yuri Gagarin's flight. Four years later, in March 1965, the Voskhod-2 ship made an emergency landing in the Permian taiga.

During this flight, Alexei Leonov became the first man in the world to go into outer space. True, he almost died at the same time - his spacesuit swelled so that the return to the ship was in question, he could not squeeze through the hatch for a long time. And then everything could end badly again, when the automatic descent control system failed during landing on Earth. What happened next, Alexei Leonov described as follows: “The ship began to turn. And for the first time in the history of astronautics, we carried out a descent in manual mode. Since the orbit was higher, they missed it: they landed not in the Kazakh steppes, but in the Permian taiga. They shot the hatch and ... drowned up to their shoulders in snow. Frost - minus 25 degrees. In order not to die from the cold, Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev had to kindle a fire and hope that they would be found soon. We had to wait three days. After this landing, the survival course was included in the mandatory training program for astronauts.

One of the Permians who were looking for the Vostok-2 crew in the taiga told RP how Alexei Leonov first of all suggested that the rescuers change space food for ordinary bread and why then the whole district flaunted in orange silk.

"We didn't believe at first"

In 1965, Valentin Rozhkov was the chief mechanic of the Permellesprom Shemey timber industry enterprise, on whose territory the Voskhod-2 crew landed, and it was he who was assigned to lead the ground rescue operation. He still lives in Perm. And he remembers all the events almost every minute, although this year he celebrates his 80th anniversary.

Valentin Rozhkov

Valentin Rozhkov. Photo from personal archive

On March 19, 1965, Rozhkov was at a meeting of the chief mechanics of the Uralzapadles plant in the city of Berezniki.

We - all who came to the meeting - went to have lunch at a restaurant on Lenin Square, near the Drama Theater. We see that a lot of people have gathered in the square. Many with movie cameras, the whole space is packed. There were even people on the roofs of five-story buildings, - recalls Valentin Rozhkov in a conversation with a RP correspondent. - There were several forklifts with vertical booms, there were also TV people with cameras on the platforms above. We walked up to one such forklift and asked, “What happened?” And we are told that the cosmonauts, Leonov and Belyaev, should be brought soon. They landed either near Romanov, where there was a military base, or near Vogulka. We decided that it was just nonsense, we did not believe it.

Soon, the director of the plant, Igor Barabashkin, called Rozhkov into his office and told about the conversation with the Minister of Defense, Marshal Malinovsky. He said that somewhere on the territory of the timber industry enterprise, where Rozhkov worked, astronauts had landed. And so he urgently needs to go home to raise all the people in search of them.

By seven o'clock in the evening I reached our timber industry enterprise - the road to it from Berezniki was about 90 km. Everyone was waiting for me there - the party committee, the trade union committee, foremen, and foremen, because the order to start the search arrived before me. We have formed search parties. In each of them there were three people from those who skied well - there were no roads in this area then, and the snow was very deep that year. One of the triplets was our chief forester Nikolai Kozhukhov and Ivan Fedoseev from the neighboring Oshchepkovsky timber industry enterprise. We supplied all the groups with food and sent them in full gear to the operating plots of the timber industry. There they spent the night in the wagons, in order to recover at dawn in search.

“They brought all the carpets and flowers in pots to the hut”

About what happened next, Valentin Rozhkov knows from the stories of the forester Nikolai Kozhukhov. As soon as it began to get light, the group, which included Kozhukhov and Fedoseev, took a bus to the village of Kurganovka. There, the searchers asked the locals if they had seen anything unusual - maybe a parachute descending or some kind of explosion, noise.

One of the village boys said that on the evening of March 19, he was returning home from a neighboring village and saw something big and red descend from the sky, and something else black hung under it. Showed the direction. Approximately in this direction, the skiers of the search party went to comb the taiga.

On March 22, in the evening, foresters finally found the frozen astronauts. When they came out to their fire, Alexei Leonov shook hands with them and asked where the ship had landed. Having learned that they are in the Usolsky district of the Perm region (it was renamed into the Perm Territory in 2005. - RP), asked the second question: “And how many kilometers to the military base in Romanov?” Hearing that somewhere between 90-100, Leonov told Belyaev: “You see, a second earlier than necessary, manual braking was turned on, and therefore we did not reach Romanov.”

If they got to the rocket men, then no one would have known anything about this story, ”says Rozhkov. - Then Leonov asked the skiers if they had bread with them: by the time they were found, the astronauts had already pretty much missed ordinary food. Our guys treated them to everything that was in their backpacks. The astronauts responded by sharing tubes of food with them. Then they took a non-disclosure agreement from the guys, they had to remain silent. But it is understandable: they said on the radio that the astronauts had been resting in a hotel for a long time, and they were freezing in the remote taiga, they did not know whether they would be found or not.

During the search, the phone at the timber industry simply broke - everyone wanted to know if there was a result.

And we ourselves did not know anything, - says Rozhkov. - They were waiting for Leonov and Belyaev to be brought to Shemeiny, preparing to solemnly meet them: they brought all the carpets and flowers in pots that we had into one of the huts, composed words of welcome. And we were very upset when we realized that they would not get to us. As it turned out later, the cosmonauts were taken on skis to Kurganovka, from there they were taken by helicopter to Bolshoye Savino, and then sent by plane to Baikonur.

"Everyone flaunted in orange silk"

On March 23, another helicopter arrived at the timber industry enterprise. Three colonels came out of it and asked Valentin Rozhkov to find them a good lumberjack. They explained that it was necessary to cut down the trees around the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, which was stuck in them, so that it could be evacuated. We still need to clear the area so that a helicopter can land on it. This request confused the chief mechanic of the timber industry enterprise: every single feller at that time was in the taiga.

It was such a relief when I suddenly heard how a chainsaw started working somewhere in the village near the boiler house! I called the stoker and asked who was sawing. It turned out that Vasya Nasedkin - he was our helper at the base. I explained that there is one person, but he is not an expert. They decided to see it for themselves. Then they said that it would fit, let it fly. Only at first they sent home to take a supply of chains, gasoline and change into clean clothes - Vasya's overalls were dirty. Before the flight, I explained to the helicopter pilots that first, lower Vasya down the ladder, and then throw down the fuel tanks and the chainsaw. But they got it all mixed up and did the opposite. Vasya went downstairs, but there was no gasoline, everything leaked out. I had to take another flight.

And already in April, the main heroes of the search - foresters Nikolai Kozhukhov and Ivan Fedoseev - were summoned to Moscow. There, during the program, which was filmed on Central Television, they presented the pilot-cosmonauts with memorable gifts from the inhabitants of the Kama region.

We all puzzled over what to give as a gift. We decided to give Leonov our main working tool - the Druzhba chainsaw, and Belyaev - a stuffed fox. Then, about a month later, a military commissar from the Perm region flew to our timber industry and gave all three of them - Kozhukhov, Fedoseev and Vasya Nasedkin - a commemorative wristwatch, on which was engraved: “March 19, 1965. For the fulfillment of a particularly important state task. Defense Minister Marshal Malinovsky. We were amazed that the watch was Swiss - we did not know then that such things existed. And the guys found two orange parachutes in the taiga, on which the spacecraft landed, and sewed shirts out of them. Almost everyone was flaunting in orange silk! Those were unforgettable times!

By the Day of Cosmonautics, Dmitry Kiselev's film "The Time of the First" will be released on the screens of the country. The picture tells about Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov - the first people to step into outer space. The producers of the film, Timur Bekmambetov and Yevgeny Mironov, decided to recall the feat of the crew of the Voskhod-2 ship and tell in detail how it happened.

Mironov not only produced "The Time of the First", but also played one of the main roles - Alexei Leonov. The role of his partner was played by Konstantin Khabensky, and Vladimir Ilyin reincarnated as designer Sergei Korolev.

In addition to the filmmakers, Heroes of the Soviet Union cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Alexei Leonov, the widow of cosmonaut Pavel Belyaev, as well as Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, Deputy Minister Alexander Zhuravsky, President of Sberbank German Gref, singer Philip Kirkorov, actor Sergei Bezrukov with his wife Anna came to the premiere. Mathison, TV presenter Elena Malysheva, singer Yulia Samoilova and other famous people.

The creators of the film urged the guests of the premiere to be the first and start helping those who need it more than others. Volunteers from the Mironov, Bekmambetov and Khabensky charitable foundations stood in the lobby, accepting donations. Among those who were not indifferent was Alexei Leonov. He is directly related to the "Time of the First" - the astronaut advised filmmakers.

It was Leonov who told director Dmitry Kiselev about the problems that arose during the flight aboard the ship. Kiselev found confirmation of his words in the archives, having listened to more than 70 hours of radio communications between the cosmonauts and the MCC.

Our picture is very close to the reality of 1965: all the stages of preparation for the flight, all the problems are reflected in it, - Dmitry Kiselev admitted to Izvestia. - We even showed facts that until recently were classified. But 50 years have passed and now the information is available.

It turned out that an excess of oxygen arose on the ship due to a malfunction of the equipment. The crew could die, the ship could explode. But the cosmonauts fixed the problem and manually landed Voskhod-2. They were silent about this, because in the USSR equipment did not break down. True, it was not possible to find the astronauts for a long time. Morse code signals, which Leonov and Belyaev began to transmit in a critical situation, were detected not by the MCC, but by two German radio amateurs.

In order to get used to the images of astronauts, the actors had to undergo real space training, which was confirmed by the mother of Evgeny Mironov Tamara Petrovna.

I know what these shootings cost my son, ”said Tamara Mironova. - He and Kostya were freezing in the forest, somersaulting in the pressure chamber, so that Zhenya even lost consciousness. I told him: "Zhenya, you could die, you're not 25." He was advised: "If it's bad, press the bracelet." Yes, it’s even difficult to breathe there, let alone press the bracelets!

After the premiere, Izvestia asked Alexei Leonov how the on-screen reality coincided with reality.

I liked the film, but in reality it was even worse, scarier than on the screen, - admitted Alexey Arkhipovich. - This cannot be transferred to the cinema, even with such opportunities as Timur Bekmambetov has. But I liked the acting. I am proud that Pasha and I were not embellished and we are in the cinema the way we were in life.

Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky compared "The Time of the First" with Alfons Cuarón's film "Gravity". And the comparison, in his opinion, was not in favor of the Oscar-winning picture.

A lot of unexpected and tragic things happen to George Clooney and his comrades. But it's all fiction. And what happened to our cosmonauts is not invented, it is an amazing, unpredictable, tragic and heroic story, - the minister shared his impressions.

To agree with the first viewers or not - every movie fan will be able to decide very soon. The film "Time of the First" will be released on the screens on April 6.

Spaceships Voskhod

"Voskhod" is the name of a series of Soviet multi-seat spacecraft for flights in near-Earth orbit. Length 5 m, transverse dimension 2.43 m. The astronauts landed in a descent vehicle, which had 2 parachutes. The first of this series, Voskhod, is a three-seat spacecraft; launched into orbit on 10/12/1964; mass 5.32 tons, mass of the descent vehicle 2.9 tons. The crew consisted of the commander of the ship V.M. Komarov, researcher K.P. Feoktistov and doctor B.B. Egorov. Flight duration 1 day 17 min 3 s. 10/13/1964 Voskhod landed 312 km northeast of the city of Kustanai. In terms of design and equipment, the Voskhod spacecraft differed from the ships of the Vostok series - it was equipped with a soft landing system, had a backup solid-fuel brake propulsion system (weight 145 kg), new instrumentation (an additional orientation system with ion sensors, improved TV and radio equipment and other). Flight tasks: testing of a spacecraft, study of the efficiency and interaction in flight of a group of cosmonauts, specialists in various fields of science and technology, conducting physical, technical and biomedical research.

"Voskhod-2" - a two-seat spacecraft (mass 5.682 tons, mass of the descent vehicle without airlock 3.1 tons); according to the layout scheme, the composition of the on-board systems corresponds to the ship "Voskhod". The main differences: Voskhod-2 has an airlock chamber, an airlock system, elements of systems for ensuring and controlling a person's spacewalk. The lock chamber is attached to the outer surface of the descent vehicle (on the upper hemisphere); at the launch site, the lock chamber is in the folded state; after the launch, it is inflated and installed in the working position. It is cylindrical in shape and has 2 hatches: one for communication with the descent vehicle, the other for spacewalks. The presence of an airlock as part of the spacecraft made it possible to maintain the tightness of the descent vehicle during the astronaut's exit and return to the spacecraft. "Voskhod-2" with a crew consisting of P.I. Belyaev (ship commander) and A.A. Leonov (co-pilot) was put into orbit on 18.3.1965. In flight, for the first time in history, Leonov (in a spacesuit with an autonomous life support system) left the spacecraft into open space; was outside the cockpit for 20 minutes, outside the airlock in open space - 12 minutes 9 s, the maximum distance from the airlock was 5 m. Leonov had communication with the ship using a halyard. The main stages of the exit were broadcast on television and photographed with a movie camera. The total flight duration was 1 day 2 hours 2 minutes 17 seconds, the landing was made using the manual contour of the attitude control system, the spacecraft landed in the area of ​​Perm. The launches of the Voskhod ships were carried out by one of the modifications of the R-7A rocket.