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6 days ago · Order of Lenin. Yuri Gagarin (born March 9, 1934, near Gzhatsk, Russia, U.S.S.R. [now Gagarin, Russia]—died March 27, 1968, near Moscow) was a Soviet cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man to travel into space. The son of a carpenter on a collective farm, Gagarin graduated as a molder from a trade school near Moscow in 1951.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
e. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin[a][b] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful crewed spaceflight, became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes.
- Childhood and Cosmonaut Selection
- Vostok 1 Mission
- Soyuz 1 and Death
- Additional Resources
Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in the Soviet Russian village of Klushino to parents who worked on a collective farm, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). Beginning in October 1941, German soldiers occupied Klushino as part of their advance on Moscow during World War II. The occupation lasted 21 months, according to the BBC. In 1946, hi...
"Vostok" means "East" in Russian, as opposed to the Western world, signifying the mission's importance in the Cold War-era space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The crewed part of the capsule was spherical, with an inside diameter of about 7 feet (2 m), according to The Planetary Society. The spacecraft launched on April 12, 19...
On April 23, 1967, the Soyuz 1 mission launched with cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov as its sole crewmember, with Gagarin as the backup. During the spacecraft's landing, the parachute failed to deploy, instantly killing Komarov when it hit the ground. Though Gagarin had nothing to do with the crash (and even reportedly tried to get the launch postponed ...
You can learn more about the first man in space with these pieces from Scientific American and Astronomy.com. Space Center Houston's on this day in historydetails Gagarin's historic flight to space.
Apr 10, 2011 · On the morning of 12 April 1961, the 27-year-old Gagarin was waiting to be launched into space atop a 30m-high booster at the Tyuratam test range in Kazakhstan (now the Baikonur Cosmodrome). As ...
Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut famous for being the first human ever to enter space, spending 108 minutes orbiting the globe in the Vostok 1 spacecraft. ... where he spent 108 minutes aloft ...
Apr 12, 2021 · It has been 60 years since a Russian cosmonaut called Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. He completed a full orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961 on-board the spacecraft Vostok 1. It ...
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Vostok 1 (Russian: Восток, East or Orient) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 April 1961, with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard, making him the first human to reach orbital velocity around the Earth and to complete a full orbit around the Earth.
