18 March 1965
Full Moon, 99% lit
The first spacewalk nearly ends badly
Alexei Leonov floated outside for twelve minutes, then found his suit had ballooned too stiff to get back through the hatch.
He bled air out of the suit to deflate it, well below the safety limit, and went in head first because there was no room to turn round. None of this was mentioned publicly for decades.
- Date
- 18 March 1965
- Moon computed for
- 08:00 local time, UTC
- Phase
- Full Moon
- Illuminated
- 99%
Source: Leonov's own account; Russian State Archive