[2] Volynov was assigned as one of two possible commanders training for Voskhod 1 in 1964, but he and his fellow crewmembers Georgi Katys and Boris Yegorov were bumped three days before the scheduled launch date despite being the prime crew.

He was then teamed up with Viktor Gorbatko and then Georgi Shonin, but following the death of Sergey Korolyov on 14 January 1966, the Voskhod 3 flight was cancelled just 10 days before launch.

On 16 January Yeliseyev and Khrunov transferred to Soyuz 4, crewed by Commander Vladimir Shatalov, following an orbital rendezvous and docking.

As a result of the added mass of the equipment module, Volynov lost control of Soyuz 5 which began to tumble, finally stabilizing itself with the thinnest part of the spacecraft facing forward.

Volynov could only wait while the descent module's automatic orientation system tried to regain control, which fortunately it managed to do with the heat shield facing forward.

[6] On July 6, 1976 Volynov and Flight Engineer Vitaliy Zholobov were launched on board Soyuz 21 to spend between 54 and 66 days aboard the space station Salyut 5.

Following a deterioration in the health of Zholobov, who was making his first spaceflight, the decision was made to return the crew at the earliest available opportunity and they boarded their Soyuz on August 24.

Because Soyuz 21 was returning early, it was outside the normal recovery window, and encountered strong winds as it descended, which caused uneven firing of the retrorockets.