Yuri Gagarin was the first person to fly in space. His flight, on April
12, 1961, lasted 108 minutes as he circled the Earth for a little more than one
orbit in the Soviet Union’s Vostok spacecraft. Following the flight,
Gagarin became a cultural hero in the Soviet Union.
His remains are
buried at the Kremlin in Moscow, and part of his spacecraft is on display at
the RKK Energiya museum.
Gagarin’s flight
came at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing
for technological supremacy in space. The Soviet Union had already sent
the first artificial satellite, called Sputnik, into space in October
1957.
Before Gagarin’s mission, the Soviets sent a test flight into space
using a prototype of the Vostok spacecraft. During this flight, they sent a
life-size dummy called Ivan Ivanovich and a dog named Zvezdochka into space.
After the test flight, the Soviet’s considered the vessel fit to take a human
into space.
On April 12,
1961, at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, the Vostok 1 spacecraft blasted off from the
Soviets’ launch site. Because no one was certain how weightlessness would
affect a pilot, the spherical capsule had little in the way of onboard
controls; the work was done either automatically or from the ground. If an
emergency arose, Gagarin was supposed to receive an override code that would
allow him to take manual control, but Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the
Soviet space program, disregarded protocol and gave the code to the pilot prior
to the flight.
Over the course
of 108 minutes, Vostok 1 traveled around the Earth once, reaching a maximum
height of 203 miles (327 kilometers). The spacecraft carried 10 days’ worth of
provisions in case the engines failed and Gagarin was required to wait for the
orbit to naturally decay. But the supplies were unnecessary. Gagarin re-entered
Earth’s atmosphere, managing to maintain consciousness as he experienced forces
up to eight times the pull of gravity during his descent.
Vostok 1 had no
engines to slow its re-entry and no way to land safely. About 4 miles (7 km)
up, Gagarin ejected from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth. In order for
the mission to be counted as an official spaceflight, the Fédération
Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the governing body for aerospace records,
had determined that the pilot must land with the spacecraft. Soviet leaders
indicated that Gagarin had touched down with the Vostok 1, and they did not
reveal that he had ejected until 1971. Regardless, Gagarin still set the record
as the first person to leave Earth’s orbit and travel into space.
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