The fighter pilot who commanded the first spacewalk
The automatic guidance was dead. Belyayev lay across the seats, sighting through the Vzor navigator, and oriented the capsule by hand. Leonov held him in place. It was the first fully manual reentry in the history of spaceflight.
A Pacific Fleet fighter pilot, Belyayev was the oldest candidate (thirty-four) and highest-ranking, a major, when the first cosmonaut group formed in 1960, making him its inaugural commander. On March 18, 1965, as commander of Voskhod 2, he oversaw Alexei Leonov's historic first spacewalk, then performed the first fully manual reentry in spaceflight history when the automatic guidance failed, lying across the seats to use the Vzor navigator. The capsule overshot by 2,000 kilometres into the Perm taiga, where he and Leonov spent two subzero nights before rescue. Made a Hero of the Soviet Union, he later directed Soyuz training but died of peritonitis after ulcer surgery in 1970 at forty-four.
Career Timeline
- 1945Pacific Fleet fighter pilot; Soviet–Japanese War
- 1959Air Force Academy graduate; Black Sea Fleet squadron commander
- 1960Selected for first cosmonaut group; first corps commander
- 1965.3.18–19Voskhod 2 commander: first spacewalk and manual reentry
- 1966–67Directed Soyuz and Almaz program training
- 1969Head of 1st Directorate, Cosmonaut Training Centre