Voskhod-2 with the Volga airlock

To avoid depressurising the whole ship, an inflatable cylinder two and a half metres long — the Volga — was attached to Voskhod. After the excursion the airlock was jettisoned. Leonov spent 12 minutes 9 seconds outside; his Berkut suit swelled in vacuum and would not fit through the hatch, so he bled off pressure to get back in. The landing was off-nominal: the automatics failed, the crew flew the retrofire manually and came down in the Perm taiga, spending two nights before rescuers arrived. The flight closed the Voskhod programme — further tasks required a new generation of spacecraft. The exhibit is a descent module with a mock-up of the airlock in the deployed position.