Soyuz 23

Soyuz 23 (Russian: Союз 23, Union 23) was a 1976 Soviet manned space flight, the second to the Salyut 5 space station. Cosmonauts Vyacheslav Zudov and Valery Rozhdestvensky arrived at the station, but an equipment malfunction did not allow docking and the mission had to be aborted.

The crew returned to earth, but landed on partially frozen Lake Tengiz, the first splashdown in the Soviet space program. While there was no concern about any immediate threat to the crew, recovery took nine hours owing to fog and other adverse conditions.