Vostok 1

Overview

Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Mission: Human Exploration

Low Earth Orbit 1/5 Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

The first crewed space launch & the first orbital launch. It carried the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who completed 1 orbit before safely re-entering the atmosphere, he ejected from his capsule at an altitude of 7 km in order to parachute safely to the ground. The mission lasted 108 minutes.

Vostok

Family: R-7
Configuration: K

The Vostok-K was an expendable carrier rocket used by the Soviet Union for thirteen launches between 1960 and 1964, six of which were manned. The Vostok-K made its maiden flight on 22 December 1960, three weeks after the retirement of the Vostok-L. The third stage engine failed 425 seconds after launch, and the payload, a Korabl-Sputnik spacecraft, failed to reach orbit. The spacecraft was recovered after landing, and the two dogs aboard the spacecraft survived the flight. On 12 April 1961, a Vostok-K rocket was used to launch Vostok 1, the first manned spaceflight, which made Yuri Gagarin the first human to fly in space.

Specifications
  • Stages
    3
  • Length
    30.84 m
  • Diameter
    2.99 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    280 T
  • Thrust
    971 kN
Family
  • Name
    Vostok
  • Family
    R-7
  • Variant
    K
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    Vostok-K
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
  • Low Earth Orbit
    4725 kg
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

Vostok-3KA No.3


In-active Human Rated Crew On-board: 1 Crew Capacity: 1 Payload Capacity: 4725 kg
Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Serial Number: Vostok-3KA No.3

Vostok 1 was a Vostok spacecraft which launched on 12 April 1961 06:07 UTC. It transported one cosmonaut to Low Earth Orbit. The crew was Yuri Gagarin.

Vostok Details

Crew


Yuri Gagarin

Pilot - Russian - ( RFSA )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: March 9, 1934
Date of Death: March 27, 1968

Soviet Space Program

Circle Image
Founded: 1931 Successes: 2285 Failures: 168 Pending: 0

Agency Type: Government

The Soviet space program, was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) actived from 1930s until disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union's space program was mainly based on the cosmonautic exploration of space and the development of the expandable launch vehicles, which had been split between many design bureaus competing against each other. Over its 60-years of history, the Russian program was responsible for a number of pioneering feats and accomplishments in the human space flight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (cosmonaut Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the Moon (Luna 3) and unmanned lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover (Lunokhod 1), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth (Luna 16), and first space station (Salyut 1). Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets.

WIKI

Related News

Spaceflight Now

April 12 marks 60 years since Gagarin’s spaceflight, 40 years since shuttle debut

Sixty years ago Monday, a 27-year-old Russian test pilot named Yuri Gagarin strapped into a Vostok capsule in Central Asia and rode into orbit atop a launcher derived from a Soviet nuclear missile, becoming the first human to travel into t…

NASA Spaceflight

Roscosmos, NASA celebrate historic launch anniversaries while looking to the future

Today, Roscosmos is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Vostok-1 mission, which launched Yuri Gagarin and the first human spaceflight, while NASA simultaneously commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first launch of the world’s first…

Arstechnica

Six decades after Gagarin, nostalgia—and not much else—fuels Russia in space

"Looking at the Earth from afar, you realize it is too small for conflict."

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

1/5


Soyuz 2.1a
Success
6 days, 19 hours ago
Soyuz MS-24
31/6 - Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

Soyuz MS-24 carried two cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in K…


Firefly Alpha
Success
1 week ago
FLTA003 (VICTUS NOX)
Space Launch Complex 2W - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Third flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying a payload for the US Department of Defense.


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 3 days ago
Starlink Group 7-2
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Atlas V 551
Success
1 week, 4 days ago
NROL-107 (Silent Barker)
Space Launch Complex 41 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Classified space situational awareness (SSA) payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).


Long March 6A
Success
1 week, 5 days ago
Yaogan 40
Launch Complex 9A - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

3 Chinese reconnaissance satellites of unknown purposes, officially reported as for "Electromagnetic environment probing" purposes.


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 6 days ago
Starlink Group 6-14
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 22 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


SpaceShipTwo
Success
1 week, 6 days ago
Galactic 03
Spaceport America - Air launch to Suborbital flight

Third commercial Virgin Galactic mission.


H-IIA 202
Success
2 weeks, 1 day ago
XRISM & SLIM
Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-1 - Tanegashima Space Center, Japan

X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), formerly the X-Ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (XARM), is a replacement for the Hitomi satellite that …


Long March 4C
Success
2 weeks, 1 day ago
Yaogan 33-03
Launch Area 4 (SLS-2 / 603) - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

The Yaogan 33-03 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purpose.


Ceres-1S
Success
2 weeks, 3 days ago
4x Tianqi
DeFu-15002 mobile launch platform - Sea Launch

4 small satellites for LEO Internet of Things (IoT) communication purposes.