The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

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The first series of manned Russian spacecraft. Six
Vostok (“East”) missions, from 1961 through 1963,
carried cosmonauts on successively longer flights, and
each set a new first in spaceflight history. Vostok 1 was
the first manned spacecraft to complete a full orbit,
Vostok 2 the first to spend a full day in space. Vostoks
3 and 4 made up the first two-spacecraft mission. Vostok
5 was the first long-duration mission, and Vostok
6 was the first to carry a woman. 142
Gagarin’s historic flight in Vostok 1 was preceded
by a number of unmanned missions to test the spaceworthiness
of the Vostok capsule and the reentry and
recovery method to be used. These test flights were
known in the west as Sputnik 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10 but in
Vostok The Vostok 1 capsule used by Yuri Gagarin, on
display in the RKK Energia museum. Joachim Becker
Vostok
the Soviet Union as Korabl Sputnik1 to 5. (See table,
“Vostok Flights.”)
Vostok Spacecraft
A spherical cabin, 2.3 m in diameter, attached to a
biconical instrument module. The cabin was occupied
by a single cosmonaut sitting in an ejection seat
that could be used if problems arose during launch
and that was activated after reentry to carry the pilot
free of the landing sphere. Also inside the cabin were
three viewing portholes, film and television cameras,
space-to-ground radio, a control panel, life-support
equipment, food, and water. Two radio antennas protruded
from the top of the capsule, and the entire
sphere was coated with ablative material (see ablation)
so that there was no need to stabilize it to any
particular attitude during reentry. The instrument
module, which was attached to the cabin by steel
bands, contained a single, liquid-propellant retrorocket
and smaller attitude control thrusters. Round
bottles of nitrogen and oxygen were clustered around
the instrument module close to where it joined the
cabin.
Vostok Rocket
Essentially, the same rocket (a modified R-7 ballistic
missile; see “R” series of Russian missiles) that had
launched Sputnik 1, 2, and 3, but with an upper
stage supported by a latticework arranged and powered
by a single RD-7 engine. The combination
could launch a payload of about 4,700 kg into low
Earth orbit.
Vostok Missions
Vostok 1
Yuri Gagarin made history with his 108-minute, 181 ×
327-km single-orbit flight around the world. Once in
orbit, he reported that all was well and began describing
the view through the windows. Gagarin had
brought a small doll with him to serve as a gravity
indicator: when the doll floated in midair he knew he
was in zero-g. (On April 12, 1991, Musa Manarov, the
man who had by then logged the most time in space