He April 12, 1961 Russian Yuri Gagarin He became the first person to travel in space. At 9:07 a.m. (Moscow time) the Vostok 3KA-3 spacecraft, later called Vostok 1, lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) with Yuri Gagarin on board. The spacecraft entered orbit at an altitude of 315 kilometers above Earth's atmosphere and touched down 1 hour 48 minutes later in a city in the Saratov region of southeastern Russia. Gagarin became an international celebrity Awarded With many medals and titles including Hero of the Soviet Union.
This historic event paved the way for space exploration and marked a fore and aft in the history of the space race. For this reason, Manned Space Flight Day is celebrated every April 12, and “Uris Night” is also celebrated.
A rough landing
Although the work of Yuri Gagarin A complete success, not everything went as planned. There were several technical glitches including the landing pad. Returning to Earth, Gagarin's ship took a different route than expected and landed in a village in the Saratov region near the Volga River.
The spaceship was spherical in shape and designed to carry a person, but not to land with them inside, so Gagarin had to be evacuated When it was nearly 7 kilometers from the Earth's surface. The USSR kept it a secret for decades, as International Aeronautical Federation regulations in force at the time specified that to certify a space flight, a ship's pilot had to take it off and land it.
The perfect man to orbit the earth
In 1960, the Soviet Union launched an ambitious plan to send a man into space, who would be selected from the Air Force Pilot Corps. Yuri Gagarin was selected along with twenty pilots to be part of the Soviet space program. After a rigorous selection process that included physical, psychological and skill tests, Yuri Gagarin was selected solely for his aviation experience. For his calm and confident nature.
The start of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union
Yuri Gagarin's flight in the middle of the Cold War was a victory for the Soviet Union's space race. Won the match against USA, the first in a rivalry between two superpowers to reach this historic milestone. A space race between the US and Russia was sparked. It was America's turn in 1969, when the Apollo 11 spacecraft managed to take a man to the moon.
