On This Day In Space! 1st Docking of 2 Crewed Spacecraft

[Buster's Uncle]

On This Day In Space! 1st Docking of 2 Crewed Spacecraft
Space.com
By Hanneke Weitering, Space.com Staff Writer |  January 16, 2018 07:13am ET






Welcome to "On This Day ... in Space!" where we peer back in our archives to find historic moments in spaceflight and astronomy. So enjoy a blast from the past with Space.com's Hanneke Weitering to look back at what happened on this day in space!

On January 16, 1969, two crewed spacecraft docked in orbit for the first time.

When the Soviet Union launched the Soyuz 4 spacecraft, only one cosmonaut was on board. But it returned with a crew of three after two cosmonauts from Soyuz 5 transferred spacecrafts in orbit. Soyuz 4 safely returned to Earth, but the one unlucky cosmonaut who was left behind in Soyuz 5 had a pretty rough landing.

During re-entry, the service module failed to separate from the descent module, and the spacecraft got turned upside-down. To top it off, the parachutes and soft-landing rockets failed to cushion the landing like they should. That cosmonaut, Boris Volynov, miraculously survived the crash — but he did lose a few teeth.

Catch up on our entire "On This Day In Space" series on YouTube with the playlist here.


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