First human-crewed orbital flight in USSR's Vostok 1:Who and When?
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| Yuri Gagarin in Sweden |
The orbital spaceflight consisted of a single orbit around Earth which skimmed the upper atmosphere at 169 kilometers (91 nautical miles) at its lowest point. The flight took 108 minutes from launch to landing. Gagarin parachuted to the ground separately from his capsule after ejecting at 7 km (23,000 ft) altitude.
In Politics
The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two Cold War superpowers, began just before the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Both countries wanted to develop spaceflight technology quickly, particularly by launching the first successful human spaceflight. The Soviet Union secretly pursued the Vostok programme in competition with the United States Project Mercury. Vostok launched several precursor unmanned missions between May 1960 and March 1961, to test and develop the Vostok rocket family and space capsule. These missions had varied degrees of success, but the final two—Korabl-Sputnik 4 and Korabl-Sputnik 5—were complete successes, allowing the first manned flight.
What happened before launch
Gagarin was examined by a team of doctors prior to his flight. One doctor gave her recollection of the events in an interview with Russia Today in April 2011: "Gagarin looked more pale than usual. He was unsociable and quiet, which was not like him at all. He would answer by nodding or a short 'yes' to all questions. Sometimes he would start humming some tunes. This was a different Gagarin. We geared him up, and hugged. And I said, 'Yuri, everything will be fine.' And he nodded back."
Mission
At 05:30 Moscow time, on the morning of April 12, 1961, both Gagarin and his backup Titov were woken.[23] They were given breakfast, assisted into their spacesuits, and then were transported to the launch pad.[24] Gagarin entered the Vostok 1 spacecraft, and at 07:10 local time (04:10 UTC), the radio communication system was turned on.[24] Once Gagarin was in the spacecraft, his picture appeared on television screens in the launch control room from an onboard camera. Launch would not occur for another two hours, and during the time Gagarin chatted with the mission's main CapCom, as well as Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, Nikolai Kamanin, and a few others.[24] Following a series of tests and checks, about forty minutes after Gagarin entered the spacecraft, its hatch was closed. Gagarin, however, reported that the hatch was not sealed properly, and technicians spent nearly an hour removing all the screws and sealing the hatch again.[2] According to a 2014 obituary, Vostok's chief designer, Oleg Ivanovsky, personally helped rebolt the hatch.[25] There is some disagreement over whether the hatch was in fact not sealed correctly, as a more recent account stated the indication was false.During this time Gagarin requested some music to be played over the radio. Korolev was reportedly suffering from chest pains and worried, as up to this point the Soviet space launch rate was 50% (12 out of 24 launches had failed). Two Vostoks had failed to reach orbit due to launch vehicle malfunctions and another two malfunctioned in orbit. Korolev was given a pill to calm him down.Gagarin, on the other hand, was described as calm; about half an hour before launch his pulse was recorded at 64 beats per minute.
While Landing
At 07:25 UT, the spacecraft's automatic systems brought it into the required attitude (orientation) for the retrorocket firing, and shortly afterwards, the liquid-fueled engine fired for about 42 seconds over the west coast of Africa, near Angola, about 8,000 kilometers (4,300 nautical miles) uprange of the landing point. The orbit's perigee and apogee had been selected to cause reentry due to orbital decay within 10 days (the limit of the life support system function) in the event of retrorocket malfunction. However, the actual orbit differed from the planned and would not have allowed descent until 20 days.[32]Ten seconds after retrofire, commands were sent to separate the Vostok service module from the reentry module (code name "little ball" (Russian: шарик, translit. sharik)), but the equipment module unexpectedly remained attached to the reentry module by a bundle of wires. At around 07:35 UT, the two parts of the spacecraft began reentry and went through strong gyrations as Vostok 1 neared Egypt. At this point the wires broke, the two modules separated, and the descent module settled into the proper reentry attitude. Gagarin telegraphed "Everything is OK" despite continuing gyrations; he later reported that he did not want to "make noise" as he had (correctly) reasoned that the gyrations did not endanger the mission (and were apparently caused by the spherical shape of the reentry module). As Gagarin continued his descent, he remained conscious as he experienced about 8 g during reentry. (Gagarin's own report states "over 10 g".)
At 07:55 UT, when Vostok 1 was still 7 km from the ground, the hatch of the spacecraft was released, and two seconds later Gagarin was ejected. At 2.5 km (8,200 ft) altitude, the main parachute was deployed from the Vostok spacecraft. Two schoolgirls witnessed the Vostok landing and described the scene: "It was a huge ball, about two or three meters high. It fell, then it bounced and then it fell again. There was a huge hole where it hit the first time."[citation needed]
Gagarin's parachute opened almost right away, and about ten minutes later, at 08:05 UT, Gagarin landed. Both he and the spacecraft landed via parachute 26 km (16 mi) south west of Engels, in the Saratov region at 51.270682°N 45.99727°E. It was 280 km to the west of the planned landing site (near Baikonur).[32]
A farmer and her daughter observed the strange scene of a figure in a bright orange suit with a large white helmet landing near them by parachute. Gagarin later recalled, "When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!"
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