Yuri Gagarin, pilot of the Vostok 1, is on the bus on the way to the launch. Image Credit: © РИА Новости
On the 12th of April 1961, an audacious 27-year-old Soviet aviator Yuri Gagarin sat inside the capsule Vostok 1 and when the rocket lifted off from Baikonur he said, "Poyekhali!"
The rocket had been launched and Gagarin became the first human to travel into space and orbit Earth. However, the man was unsure whether he would ever return home, as the technology was still new and no human had ever experienced orbital spaceflight.
Scientists were uncertain about how the human body would respond to weightlessness and spaceflight. They were concerned about how the conditions might affect the pilot, and that is why Vostok 1 was designed to operate largely automatically, although Gagarin had an override code that allowed him to take manual control if necessary.
There was a planned method for returning Gagarin to Earth, but he did not land inside the spacecraft. After re-entry, Gagarin ejected from the capsule at about 7 kilometres above the ground and descended by parachute.
If the retro rockets had failed, Vostok 1 had a natural orbital-decay backup: the spacecraft would eventually have re-entered the atmosphere after several days.
While coming down, the instrument/service module initially failed to separate cleanly from the descent module. The spacecraft began spinning during re-entry until the connecting cables burnt through, allowing the descent module to stabilise.
Gagarin then ejected from the capsule and landed safely near the village of Smelovka, southwest of Engels in the Saratov region of the Soviet Union.
By completing one successful orbit, Gagarin became a worldwide celebrity and was honoured with many medals and awards. Although he continued flying and training for future space missions, he never flew another orbital mission.
Sadly, on 27 March 1968, Gagarin died when his MiG-15UTI training aircraft crashed during a routine training flight.
References:
NASA Science Yuri Gagarin: First Human in Space
NASA : Making History
