This article originally appeared on The Daily Space tv show and podcast on April 16, 2021
This past Monday marked a special milestone in spaceflight history.
Sixty years ago on April 12, 1961, at 06:07 UTC, Vostok 1 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in what was then the Soviet Union. Aboard Vostok 1 was cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to travel into outer space. The mission consisted of a single orbit around the Earth, lasting 108 minutes from launch to landing and skimming the upper atmosphere at 169 kilometers at its lowest point.
Preparations for the historic flight began the day before with the Vostok-K rocket and attached Vostok 3KA space capsule transported in a horizontal position to the launch pad. Technicians conducted a quick examination of the boosters and once everything looked good to go, Gagarin and backup cosmonaut Gherman Titov were given a final review of the flight plan.
It was decided that the launch would occur at 09:07 Moscow Time the following day. This specific time was chosen so the solar illumination would be ideal for the orientation system’s sensors as the capsule started to fly over Africa, which was when the retrorockets would need to fire for re-entry.
Prior to the flight, Gagarin was examined by a team of doctors. One of the doctors, Ada Kotovskaya, recalled: 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.
The iconic “CCCP” on Gagarin’s helmet was hand-painted by engineer Gherman Lebedev on their way to the launch site. Lebedev’s reasoning for doing so was that given the U-2 plane incident less than a year prior, there was a small chance that without some country identification Gagarin could be mistaken for a spy upon landing.
The mission itself was designed to be controlled by either automatic systems or ground control, meaning the capsule’s manual controls were completely locked. This was at the recommendation of medical staff and spacecraft engineers who were unsure how a human would react to weightlessness. According to Vostok’s chief designer Oleg Ivanovsky, a code was given to the cosmonaut to unlock the controls in case of emergency.
Tension was high the morning of the launch, with Chief Designer Sergei Korolev reportedly suffering from stress-induced chest pains because up until this point Soviet space launches had only a 50% success rate. How this launch was going to go was anyone’s guess!
Gagarin entered the Vostok 1 spacecraft around 07:10 local time — or 04:10 UTC — and after a series of tests and checks lasting about forty minutes, the hatch was closed. Gagarin soon reported that the hatch was not sealed properly, and technicians scrambled to fix the problem. Ivanovsky personally helped rebolt the hatch. During this time, Gagarin was described as appearing calm. Sensors recorded his pulse at a low 64 beats per minute as he listened to music play over the radio.
Finally, at 6:07 UTC, Vostok 1 lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site Number 1. Korolev radioed to wish Gagarin a good flight, to which Gagarin replied “Poyekhali!” (“Let’s go!”) The four strap-on boosters, the rocket‘s core stage, and the final rocket stage all performed successfully. As the rocket passed over central Russia, Gagarin radioed in, “Everything is working very well. All systems are working. Let’s keep going!” and at 6:17 UTC the rocket’s final stage shut down, and Vostok 1 — carrying the first human into space — reached orbit. Ten seconds later the rocket separated from the capsule.
After a little over one hour in orbit, Vostok’s automatic systems brought it into the required attitude for retrorocket firing over the west coast of Africa, approximately 8,000 kilometers up range of the landing point. When the command was sent to separate the Vostok service module from the reentry module, the equipment module remained attached by a bundle of wires, causing strong gyrations that shook the spacecraft. The wires eventually broke, causing the modules to finally separate, which stabilized the spacecraft. Gagarin experienced around 8 Gs as his descent continued.
Gagarin ejected from the craft while it was still at an altitude of seven kilometers, his parachute deploying almost immediately. Ten minutes later he was safely on the ground, 41 kilometers from Engels in the Saratov region. A young girl named Rita Nurskanova and her grandfather witnessed Gagarin’s descent. He later recalled his encounter with them, saying, "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!"