Sokol space suit
space suit used in Soyuz spacecraft
The Sokol space suit (Russian: Cокол, lit. 'Falcon') is a series of soft-body pressure suits designed and built by NPP Zvezda. It was first introduced in 1973 for the Soviet space program following the Soyuz 11 disaster, and continues to see use in the modern day primarily by the Russian space program, being worn by space travelers flying aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. A version of Sokol is also used by the China Manned Space Program.
Sokol is described by its makers as a rescue suit[2] and it is not capable of being used outside the spacecraft in a spacewalk or extravehicular activity. Instead, its purpose is to keep the wearer alive in the event of an accidental depressurization of the spacecraft.
History
Pressure suits were worn on the early Soviet Vostok space missions, but when the Soyuz spacecraft was being developed in the mid-1960s, its designers, OKB-1, did not incorporate the use of spacesuits into its design. Some of the early Soyuz flights carried Yastreb space suits but these were only for spacewalks and were only worn in orbit.
On June 30, 1971, the crew of Soyuz 11 died when their spacecraft depressurized during re-entry. One of the recommendations of the investigating government commission was that pressure suits should be worn by future crews during critical phases of their mission—launch, docking and landing.
NPP Zvezda was given the task of providing the suits.
The public source identifies “Sokol space suit” as space suit used in Soyuz spacecraft. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sokol, space and suit.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1197668. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1973 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sokol space suit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.