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The first successful manned spaceflight took place 50 years ago today, on April 12 1961. Yuri Gagarin, a 27-year old Soviet cosmonaut was picked for the landmark mission. He was the first human in space and the first to orbit the earth. He circled the planet for 1 hour and 38 minutes aboard the cramped Vostok 3KA (Vostok 1) spacecraft.
The first Vostok 3KA flight took place on 9 March 1961. In total eight Vostok 3KA spacecrafts were flown, six of which had humans on board. On 16th of April 1961 Vostok 6 carried the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova.
Originally designed for use as a camera platform for the spy satellite program, as well as a manned spacecraft, the Vostok spacecraft was the work of a team of engineers and scientists lead by Soviet's pioneer aerospace engineer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
The craft consisted of two modules. The manned, or re-entry module was spherical in design in order to protect it from re-entry heat on all sides. It housed ground controls and emergency manual controls with room for a single cosmonaut seated in an aircraft-type ejector seat. The re-entry module was affixed to the equipment, also known as the instrument module. The equipment module contained the propellant, chemical batteries and thrusters. The engine was only used at the end of the mission to assist re-entry.
The flight was automated and Gagarin's controls were locked to prevent him from taking control of the craft. A code, sealed in an envelope, was kept within the cabin in case of an emergency. Luckily for Gagarin the flight went as planned and there was no need to use it.
After over an hour in space the craft commenced landing preparations. Vostok's equipment module attempted to separate from the re-entry module but a bundle of wires prevented the separation. The wires eventually snapped allowing the re-entry module to break free and descend as planned.
At 7,000m Gagarin was ejected from the re-entry capsule, landing safely by means of a parachute. The capsule landed separately, with its own parachute.
Vostok 3KA Re-entry module specifications:
Crew size: 1
Length: 5m
Diameter: 2.3m
Mass: 2,460kg
Heat Shield Mass: 837kg
Recovery equipment: 151kg
Parachute deploys at: 2.5km altitude
Crew seat and provisions: 336kg
Crew ejects at: 7km altitude
Ballistic reentry acceleration: 8 g (78m/s²)
