Boris Valentinovich Volynov, born December 18, 1934 in the former Soviet Union, is a veteran of the Voskhod program and went into space twice aboard Soyuz vessels.
He was first assigned as a possible commander for Voskhod 1 in 1964, but he and two others were bumped three days before the scheduled launch. He trained a year training for Voskhod 3, but the flight was cancelled just 10 days before launch and he was transferred to the Soyuz group.
Volynov made it into space January 1965 aboard Soyuz 5 and transferred his two crewmen, Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov to Soyuz 4 via EVA. Volynov returned to Earth as a solo re-entry but things did not go as planned. Soyuz 5's equipment module failed to separate properly and blocked the re-entry heat shielf on the base of the descent module. Volynov lost control of Soyuz 5, which began tumbling. The heat of the re-entry finally burned off the equipment module and the descent module oriented itself properly. The parachutes deployed but only partially and the retro-rockets for a soft landing failed to fire. Volynov hit the ground so hard it broke several of his teeth.
It wasn't over.
Volynov landed far from his planned landing spot. He landed in the Ural Mountains where it was -36 °F and rescuers would not reach him for many hours. He abandoned the capsule and walked several kilometers to find shelter at a local peasant's house.
That didn't discourage him from going into space again. His second and final mission was aboard Soyuz 21 to Salyut 5 in July - August 1976. This landing had problems as well, but nearly as bad as his first. As Volynov tried to undock from the space station, the latch failed to release properly. The spacecraft moved out of range and only the first set of emergency procedures were receieved. It did not work. After another orbit, they received their final emergency procedures and the latches disengaged. Soyuz 21 was now outside the normal recovery window and encoutered strongs winds as it descended. This caused the retrorockets fire unevenly and they had a hard landing about midnight.
Volynov has not returned to space.
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