- Date
- 18–19 March 1965
- Launcher
- Vostok
- Mission
- Voskhod 2
#SSSR#Voskhod#Space Race
oskhod 2 was meant to beat America again — this time with the first human spacewalk. On 18 March 1965 Alexei Leonov ventured outside the ship for barely a quarter of an hour, on nothing but a five-metre tether. Few realised at the time how close the whole mission came to disaster.
The Voskhod craft was a rebuilt Vostok made to carry more than one person. For the spacewalk, engineers added an inflatable airlock called "Volga" — a rigid airlock would not fit inside the launch vehicle. The crew were commander Pavel Belyayev and pilot Alexei Leonov, in Berkut suits designed for exposure to vacuum.
Crew
COMMANDERPavel BelyayevA seasoned military pilot and the oldest member of the first cosmonaut corps. On return he performed the first-ever manual controlled landing of a Soviet crewed spacecraft.
PILOTAlexei LeonovThe first human to walk in open space. A gifted painter; a decade later he commanded the Soviet ship during the joint Apollo–Soyuz flight.
Mission timeline
Select a phase to read what happened. Every chapter has its own detailed page.
Launch of a two-man crew
At 07:00 UTC Voskhod 2 lifted off from Baikonur with Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov aboard. The mission had a single, historic goal: to get a human outside the ship into open space for the first time.
Read the chapter
The first spacewalk
At the start of the second orbit Leonov pushed through the Volga airlock and floated out. At 08:34 UTC he became the first human in open space — drifting on a five-metre tether while the Earth swept past below. He spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside.
Read the chapterA ballooned spacesuit
In the vacuum Leonov's Berkut suit ballooned like a balloon. It stiffened so much that he could not fit back into the narrow airlock — and his fingers slipped out of the gloves. He risked being stranded outside.
Read the chapterAn emergency landing in the taiga
The troubles did not end in space. During return the automatic orientation system failed and Belyayev had to land the ship manually — a first in Soviet history. The capsule came down 386 kilometres from the planned site, in deep snowbound taiga in the Urals near Perm.
Read the chapterMission in numbers
- Crew
- 2
- Launch
- 18. 3. 1965
- Landing
- 19. 3. 1965
- Duration
- 1 d 2 h 2 min
- Orbits
- 17
- EVA duration
- 12 min 9 s
- Spacecraft
- Voskhod 3KD
- Spacesuit
- Berkut
Eyewitness account
“The Earth is round.”
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For all its troubles, Voskhod 2 was a huge success: the first spacewalk beat America's Gemini 4 by nearly three months. It was also the last mission of the Voskhod program — the Soviets then focused all their effort on the Soyuz spacecraft. Leonov returned to space in 1975 for the joint Apollo–Soyuz flight.
Facts
- Alexei Leonov was the first human to step out of a spacecraft into open space — nearly three months before America's Ed White.
- In vacuum his suit ballooned so much he could not fit back into the airlock; he had to bleed off pressure, risking decompression sickness.
- The "Volga" airlock was inflatable — a rigid one would not fit under the launch vehicle's fairing.
- During return the automatics failed and commander Belyayev made the first manual landing of a Soviet crewed spacecraft.
- The capsule came down 386 km off target in the taiga; the crew waited two freezing nights for rescue.
Gallery
Related articles
Sources & further reading
- NSSDCA Master Catalog (NASA): Voskhod 2, 1965-022A — technical parameters and flight chronology.
- NASA Monographs in Aerospace History No. 7: Walking to Olympus — An EVA Chronology (1997).
- Wikipedia: Voskhod 2 — the starting structure of the article, CC-BY-SA.
Spaceflightpedia. (n.d.). Voskhod 2. Retrieved 9 October 2026, from https://spaceflightpedia.com/article/voskhod-2
article text — CC-BY-SA · ◉ NASA photography — public domain · ✦ AI illustration — marked, generated from sources
