USSR, June 1985. Based on actual events. After contact with the Salyut 7 space station is lost, cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh dock with the empty, frozen craft, and bring her back to life.

While studying the effects of global warming on a pod of whales, grad students on a crabbing vessel and its crew uncover frozen Soviet space shuttle and unintentionally release a monstrous organism from it.