Boris Volynov
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| Cosmonaut | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Soviet |
| Born | December 18, 1934 Irkutsk, Russia |
| Occupation1 | Engineer |
| Rank | Colonel, Soviet Air Force |
| Space time | 52d 07h 17m |
| Selection | Air Force Group 1 |
| Mission(s) | Soyuz 5, Soyuz 21 |
| Mission insignia |  |
| 1 previous or current | |
Boris Valentinovich Volynov (Russian: Борис Валентинович Волынов; born December 18, 1934 in Irkutsk) is a Soviet cosmonaut who flew two space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5, and Soyuz 21. He was the first Jewish astronaut.
He is a graduate of the Soviet Military Engineering Academy and held the rank of Colonel in the Soviet Air Force. After resigning from the space programme in 1982, he spent eight years as a senior administrator at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. After 30 years of service in Star City he retired. He and wife Tamara still live in their apartment next to Mrs Yuri Gagarin in Star City. In June of 2006 they visited the Kennedy Space Center.
In mid January of 1969, during his ninth year in the Soviet space program, Commander Volynov was aboard Soyuz 5 in space following an orbital docking with Soyuz 4. The two ships separated as planned and the two other cosmonauts returned to Earth in Soyuz 4. Volynov began undertaking his return Soyuz 5.
But its service module failed to separate after retrofire. Once the Soyuz started reaching Earth's outer atmosphere, the combined spacecraft sought the most aerodynamically stable position, nose forward. This put the heavy descent module with its light metal entry hatch toward the front, and the less dense service module with its flared base to the back.
For Volynov, this was calamitous. The extremely high heat that accompanies rentry now threatened to melt the hatch during the descent and incinerate everything inside, including him. Worse, Volynov realized in short order there was nothing he could do.
Luckily, the struts between the descent and service modules either broke off or burned through before the hatch melted through, enabling the descent module to right itself and ward off the consuming heat.
But then, due to a failure of the soft landing rockets, Volynov's touchdown was much harder than usual, causing him to break numerous teeth.
In 1976 he was part of the Soyuz 21 flight to Salyut 5, during that time there was a nitric acid fume which incapacitated his flight partner (V. Zholobov) and also affected him. He saved his partner by loading him into his attached Soyuz, and then after re-entry he continued showing integrity by returning to his capsule, after first exiting it, and once again moving his comrade, this time to out of the capsule.
Boris Volynov was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union (January 22, 1969) and Order of Lenin.
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