Foreign Use
The Chinese have bought a number of space suits from the Russians for use in their space programme. The suit worn by Yang Liwei on Shenzhou 5, the first manned Chinese space flight, closely resembles a Sokol-KV2 suit, but it is believed to be a Chinese-made version rather than an actual Russian suit. Pictures show that the suits worn by Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng on Shenzhou 6 differ in detail from the earlier suit, they are also reported to be lighter.
Sokol suits have been bought for uses other than spaceflight. It was planned that the crew of the British QinetiQ 1 high altitude balloon would wear modified Sokol suits purchased from Zvezda. As the balloonists would have occupied an open platform during their twelve hour flight, the Sokol suits, together with heavily insulated outer garments, would have protected them from the cold and low pressure of the Stratosphere as the balloon ascended to a height of around 40 km (25 miles, 132,000 feet).
Bulgaria developed its own version of the space suit in the mid-1970s.
Read more about this topic: Sokol Space Suit
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