Launch from Baikonur; landing 200 km southwest
of Kustanay / 25 km southeast of Zhitikara.
Docking with
Soyuz 4, which had the active part. The
two spacecrafts were electrical and mechanically connected , but there was no
direct way from one spaceship to the other. It was the first docking of manned
spacecrafts. Soyuz 5-cosmonauts
Khrunov and
Yeliseyev entered the
Soyuz 4 in a spacewalk on 16.01.1969 (0h 37m). After
pressurisation of the
Soyuz 4-capsule
they were greeted by cosmonaut
Shatalov in the
Soyuz
4-capsule.
Soyuz 4 and 5 separated
after 4 hours and 35 minutes docked together. All three cosmonauts landed with
the
Soyuz 4-spacecraft. Scientific
(medical and biological) and technical experiments were also performed, but all
in all it were tests of lunar landing techniques.
Volynov remained on Soyuz 5. During the re-entry the service
module failed to separate after retrofire resulting in nose-first re-entry,
which would have meant a sure death of the cosmonaut. So to say in the last
moment the bolts connecting the service module to the re-entry capsule finally
burned through and the capsule turned around, heat shield forward, just before
the forward hatch melted. All capsule propellant was exhausted and the
cosmonaut made a 9-g uncontrolled re-entry, landing hundreds of kilometres
short. It was one of the hardest landings in space history and
Volynov broke his jaw and lost several teeth.
