Boris Volynov spoke about the difficulties of the first docking in space

What difficulties were encountered during the first ever successful docking of spacecraft in orbit, which took place on January 16, 1969, told "Izvestia" twice Hero of the Soviet Union pilot-cosmonaut Boris Volynov. The interview with him took place on the eve of his 90th birthday.

"In flight, the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 ships had to perform the world's first docking in space. Imagine, at a speed of 8 km/s to approach another vehicle and connect with it. Back then, there was no experience or technique of controlling vehicles in orbit, only on simulators," said Boris Volynov.

As the cosmonaut explained, "Soyuz-4", which was piloted by Vladimir Shatalov, was launched from Baikonur on January 14. The next day, the Soyuz-5 went into space. On board it were Volynov as crew commander, as well as Yevgeny Khrunov and Alexei Eliseev.

On January 16, the ships met in orbit. Docking was started in automatic mode, and it was completed in manual mode. When before the docking was about 30 meters, Shatalov transmitted that he has a limited supply of fuel. Therefore, the Soyuz-5 crew was responsible for the approach maneuver.

"Khrunov and Eliseev monitored the instruments, and I held the control knobs. The position of the ship depended on every movement. Nevertheless, we performed everything accurately, and the docking happened safely," - said Boris Volynov.

He also told about non-standard situations that occurred during docking.

Read more in an exclusive interview with Izvestia:

"What is space - neither we, nor even Korolev knew."