Vostok 1
| Mission dates | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mission: | Vostok 1 | ||
| NSSDCA ID : | 1961-012A | ||
| Spacecraft: | Vostok | ||
| Dimensions: | 4730 kg | ||
| Call sign: | Кедр ( Kedr, for (Siberian) "cedar" ) | ||
| Crew: | 1 | ||
| Begin: | April 12, 1961, 06:07 UT | ||
| Starting place: | Baikonur 1/5 | ||
| Landing: | April 12, 1961, 07:55 UT | ||
| Landing place: | 16 miles southwest of Engels ( 51 ° 16 ′ 49.4 ″ N , 45 ° 58 ′ 36.3 ″ E ) | ||
| Flight duration: | 1h 48m | ||
| Earth orbits: | 1 | ||
| Orbital time : | 89.34 min | ||
| Orbit inclination : | 64.95 ° | ||
| Apogee : | 315 km | ||
| Perigee : | 169 km | ||
| Covered track: | approx. 41,000 km | ||
| ◄ Before / After ► | |||
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Vostok 1 ( Russian Восток-1 for East-1 ) was the first manned space flight . On April 12, 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first person to cross the internationally recognized limit of 100 kilometers. Gagarin took off on board a Vostok spacecraft from the Tyuratam spaceport (today's Baikonur cosmodrome ) and landed near the southwestern Russian city of Engels after a complete orbit around the world . The flight is one of the greatest successes of the Soviet space program and is considered a milestone in the space race between the USSR and the United States . The US's first manned orbital flight, Mercury-Atlas 6 , took place ten months later, in February 1962.
Officially, the mission was announced by the Soviet Union as Vostok (without the addition of the number 1 ); To avoid confusion, the flight is mostly referred to internationally as Vostok 1 .
planning
The first serious planning for manned spaceflight began in the Soviet Union in December 1957, when a department for studies of manned spaceflight was created in the OKB-1 development institute. The working group subsequently developed a spherical capsule with the ICBM R-7 should be started. The project was accelerated by rivalry with the United States , which was also developing a manned spacecraft as part of the Mercury program .
A decree of June 4, 1960 provided for the end of the test program for the Vostok spacecraft, which consisted of three separate modules, by the end of 1960. In September of the same year, some of the leading chief designers in the field of manned space travel proposed in a secret memorandum to the Central Committee of the CPSU that a spacecraft be prepared for a manned launch in December 1960. The request was approved on October 11th on the grounds that the mission was of "special importance".
The flight was finally delayed until April 1961 for reasons that have not been officially announced until now. However, the launch of the first Soviet Venus probe Venera 1 had priority. Furthermore, the date for the flight was delayed due to the explosion of an R-16 missile on the launch pad, which killed more than 100 people (“ Nedelin disaster ”). Technical problems also come into question.
Test flights
In addition to numerous ground tests, a number of unmanned test flights were carried out in the development phase of the Vostok capsule, which are summarized under the name Korabl-Sputnik (KS):
- The first prototype of a Vostok spacecraft was launched on May 15, 1960 with a modified R-7 ICBM. An attempt to re-enter the spacecraft failed.
- After a false start, the second test flight took place in August 1960. For the first time, two dogs were on board the improved spaceship to investigate their reactions to weightlessness. The animals were recovered after the 24-hour mission.
- Korabl-Sputnik 3 took off in December 1960 and was largely a repetition of the previous flight. The two dogs died during re-entry as the capsule left the correct trajectory and was destroyed by the self-destruct mechanism .
- Another mission ended after the start on December 22, 1960 because of a malfunction in the upper stage of the launcher with an emergency landing in Siberia . The animals on board were rescued two days later.
- The manned version of the Vostok spaceship was first used on March 9, 1961. In the spacecraft there was a test dummy with a pressure suit next to the two dogs .
- The last test flight took place on March 25, 1961 and served as a dress rehearsal for the manned mission.
Selection of the cosmonaut
The Soviet Union's First Cosmonaut Group was formed in 1960 and consisted of 20 Air Force pilots who had previously undergone intensive medical examinations. When recruiting, the focus was on physical fitness, while flight experience played a subordinate role due to the high level of automation of the Soviet spaceships. The official training of the candidates began under the supervision of Nikolai Kamanin on March 14, 1960 in Moscow , since the newly established training center outside the capital had not yet been completed. The focus of the training was initially on medical experiments and academic lectures; later there were parachute jumps and parabolic flights on board the Tu-104 .
After the simulator of the Vostok spaceship was operational, six members of the main group were selected on May 30th to complete an accelerated training program for the first flight in a newly formed subgroup. The members of the group unofficially known as the “Vanguard Six” were Yuri Gagarin , Anatoli Kartaschow , Andrijan Nikolajew , Pavel Popowitsch , German Titow and Valentin Varlamow . Kartaschow and Varlamow were later excluded from the training program due to medical problems and replaced by Grigory Neljubow and Valeri Bykowski, respectively. On June 18, 1960, the graduates of the subgroup first visited the OKB-1 development department, where the Vostok spacecraft were manufactured.
In mid-January 1961, all six candidates took oral and written exams that assessed their readiness for a flight. A special commission then determined the three most promising candidates for the first manned mission with Gagarin, Titow and Neljubow on the basis of the results. Gagarin was considered a favorite; a committee of Air Force doctors wrote of his character in August 1960:
"[Modest; (...) high degree of intellectual development in Juri evident; fantastic memory; (...) a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persistent; meticulously prepares for his activities and training tasks; (...) seems as if he understands life better than many of his friends. "
On March 17, 1961, all members of the subgroup traveled to the Tjuratam (Baikonur) cosmodrome in order to put on the SK during a joint training session in the MIK assembly hall , in parallel with the preparations for the last unmanned Korabl-Sputnik mission (see above) -1 space suits and getting into the Vostok capsule. The visit of the candidates was overshadowed by the death of the cosmonaut candidate Valentin Bondarenko , who died on March 23, 1961 in a fire in a pressure chamber in Moscow.
The final decision to use Gagarin as an occupant of the Vostok-1 spacecraft was made by a state committee chaired by Konstantin Rudnew on April 8 at a meeting in Tyuratam. The commission unanimously approved Nikolai Kamanin's proposal to select Gagarin. In the event of health problems before the start, Gagarin would have been replaced by Titov, whose substitute was Nelyubov. The remaining members of the cosmonaut group took on supporting tasks, such as acting as liaison officers between the ground stations and Gagarin on board Vostok 1 .
crew
- Yuri Alexejewitsch Gagarin (1st flight)
Substitute team
Support team
Preparations
After the successful completion of the Korabl-Sputnik-5 test flight (see above) , the state commission, which was responsible for overseeing the Vostok program, sent a formal document to the Communist Party in which it applied for approval for a manned take-off. The top-secret memorandum drawn up by the Commission under the leadership of Rudnev at a meeting in Moscow on March 29 spoke of an orbit and a subsequent landing in a corridor between the cities of Rostov , Kuibyshev and Perm . Furthermore, it was decided, contrary to the usual secrecy of Soviet space activities, to publish the first TASS report about the launch immediately after entering earth orbit. Should the spaceship make an emergency landing in the Pacific because of the low speed of the launch vehicle , this would also be announced by the TASS in order to "facilitate" the rescue of the cosmonaut. The spacecraft was to be given the previously secret name Vostok in the public press . The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to which the request of the state commission was directed, granted on April 3, 1961 the approval for a start between April 10 and April 20.
On March 2, 1961, Konstantin Feoktistow , a group leader in the OKB-1 development institute, together with his assistant Oleg Makarow, presented a series of instructions for Gagarin, covering both the planned mission phases and various emergency situations. The possibilities for the cosmonaut to control the most important systems himself have been limited; important sections like the brake ignition towards the end of the flight were fully automated.
The cosmonauts Gagarin and his substitute candidates Titow and Neljubow, who were scheduled for the flight, were together with Kamanin at the Tyuratam Cosmodrome (today Baikonur) as early as March 17, 1961. The majority of the starting team then arrived there at the beginning of April. On April 6, the first meeting of the full state commission took place there, at which, among other things, concerns about the operability of the air dryers on board the Vostok capsule were discussed. Long-term tests had shown that a saline solution could leak from the units in question during a longer flight . Due to the planned flight duration of only one and a half hours, the committee decided to leave the system in its current state. During the next meeting on April 8th, the focus was on the selection of the cosmonaut; Gagarin's nomination was unanimously accepted. In addition, the mission duration of an orbit around the earth and the orbit height of 180 to 230 kilometers were confirmed. The last pre-launch meeting of the commission took place on the morning of April 10th and was primarily a formality for the Soviet press. On the same day, the Vostok launcher was brought to launch pad 1, from which Sputnik 1 had already been launched. In addition, engineers calculated the exact start time (9:07 AM Moscow time on April 12, 1961).
Mission history
After an animal showed symptoms of space sickness during the test program , the Vostok spacecraft's maiden flight was shortened to one orbit . In addition, several emergency procedures were developed to ensure the cosmonaut's safety. For example, an orbit was chosen for the spaceship that ensures a natural re-entry after two to seven days in the event of a malfunction of the brake engines . The capsule also contained a supply of water and food for ten days, as well as a transmitter that could be used to determine the landing site of the spaceman. If the landing were to take place on non-Soviet soil, the cosmonaut was provided with "appropriate instructions" according to a communication to the Central Committee of the USSR . The manned variant of the Vostok spaceship did not have a self-destruct mechanism.
Due to the higher requirements of a manned flight, the network of orbit tracking points , which extended over the entire Soviet land mass , was expanded to 13 stations. In addition, the Soviet space program operated a fleet of naval ships, because they reluctant to set up ground stations abroad , like the USA . Each of the orbit tracking points could maintain communication with the spacecraft in orbit for about five to ten minutes when the capsule was less than 2,000 kilometers away. The nerve center for Vostok 1 was in the suburbs of Moscow, where the control center was located on the premises of the NII-4 military research institute. A unit of the Air Force was responsible for assembling the rescue troops for the landed cosmonaut, which was subordinate to a fleet of 25 aircraft and 10 helicopters.
begin
On the day before take-off, Gagarin received further briefing on the planned course of the flight from space engineers Konstantin Feoktistow and Boris Rauschenbach . He and other cosmonauts also visited the workers on the launch pad who had prepared the launcher in the previous days. Gagarin and his substitute Titow spent the night of April 12, 1961 in a wooden hut near the launch site. Both men wore sensors on their bodies that monitored the most important vital functions for the flight doctors.
At around 3:00 a.m. Moscow Standard Time (MSK) on April 12, the various stations in the control bunker and the ground stations in the Soviet Union were occupied, with the result that launch operations officially began. At 5:30 a.m. MSK, Gagarin and Titov were woken up by the Air Force doctor Yevgeny Karpov, followed by a short breakfast and a final medical examination. Then both put on their SK-1 spacesuits with the help of two assistants . The multi-ply, orange-colored trimmings weighed around ten kilograms and were intended to protect the spaceman from a possible loss of pressure . Around 6:30 a.m. MSK, Gagarin and Titow boarded the bus that took them the short distance to the launch pad together with the cosmonaut aspirants Grigori Neljubow and Andrijan Nikolajew. Upon arrival, Gagarin briefly reported to the chairman of the state commission, Konstantin Rudnew, that he was ready for the mission assigned to him. Then an elevator took him to the top of the Vostok rocket, where he boarded the spaceship through a hatch .
At 7:10 a.m. MSK Gagarin activated the radio that connected him to the designer Sergei Koroljow in the launch control center. Gagarin used the callsign Kedr ("cedar"), while the ground stations used Zarya-1 ("Dawn-1"). At 7:50 a.m. MSK, one hour after Gagarin's entry into the capsule, the hatch of the Vostok spaceship was closed. However, after a display indicated that the hatch was not properly locked, three technicians had to remove all 30 locking screws and close the hatch a second time. The breakdown led to slight delays, so that the area around the launch pad could only be cleared 30 minutes before take-off. Fifteen minutes later, the maintenance platforms surrounding the launcher were pulled back. The countdown was scheduled to pause for five minutes one minute before the start. Gagarin reported that he was ready to take off and could feel the valves working .
A few seconds before take-off, the ignition sequence of the five engines of the first and second rocket stage began . After the rocket had reached its full thrust of almost 400 tons, the four holding arms came loose. At 9:06:59 a.m. MSK on April 12, 1961, Vostok 1 took off with Yuri Gagarin on board.
"Begin! We wish you a good flight. Everything is OK."
“Pojechali! [Let's go!] Goodbye, see you soon, dear friends. "
During the ascent of the Vostok launcher , the g-force increased due to the increasing acceleration , which pushed Gagarin into his cot. 119 seconds after the start of the flight, the first stage, consisting of four boosters , was cut off. Less than a minute later, the payload fairing that had surrounded the spaceship when it was launched came off. With a load of 5 g, Gagarin noticed slight difficulty speaking. After five minutes of flight time, the engines of the second stage switched off, as a result of which the g-force decreased rapidly and Gagarin was pressed into the belt of his seat. After the second stage was detached, the third stage engine accelerated the Vostok to orbital speed . Gagarin's pulse peaked at 150 beats per minute during the start-up phase. At 9:21 MSK - 676 seconds after take-off - the spacecraft reached Earth orbit, after the third stage of the rocket had been severed shortly before. Due to poor performance of the launcher, the Vostok spacecraft reached a higher than planned orbit, the apogee (greatest distance from the earth) 70 kilometers above the planned value. If the brake ignition had failed, this would have resulted in a longer flight.
Time in orbit
Immediately after entering Earth orbit, Gagarin established a radio link with the control center and confirmed that he was feeling very good. He also described the impressions he got when looking out of one of the portholes .
“I see the earth! I see the clouds, it is admirable, what a beauty! "
After the flight ended, Gagarin wrote that he could clearly see mountain ranges, vast forests, islands and stretches of coast. He also commented that his accustoming to the state of weightlessness went smoothly.
“I did not perceive any physiological difficulties. The feeling of weightlessness was a little strange compared to [earthly] conditions. Here you feel as if you are hung up. Obviously, the tightly fitting spring system presses on the chest. (..) Later I got used to it and didn't have any unpleasant sensations. "
During the entire course of the flight, Gagarin described his health and the state of the systems of the spaceship at regular intervals. His reports were transmitted to the ground stations in the Soviet Union by a radio transmitter on the shortwave frequencies 9.019 MHz and 20.006 MHz as well as on the ultra short wave frequency 143.625 MHz . In addition, Gagarin's comments could be recorded on a tape recorder if the spaceship was not within range of the earth radio stations. In addition, two television cameras were mounted in the capsule , which provided a profile and a frontal view of Gagarin.
Gagarin's workload during the flight was extremely low; the implementation of scientific studies was not intended for Vostok 1. Gagarin mainly used the time in orbit for observing the earth's surface and monitoring the devices on board the capsule. The manual controls of the spaceship had been blocked before the flight because medical professionals had expressed concerns about the possible negative effects of the state of weightlessness on the cosmonaut. Gagarin would have had to enter a six-digit code to unlock the manual control system. The first three digits were known to Gagarin, while the remaining three digits of the code were kept in a special envelope that Gagarin was only allowed to open in the event of a loss of radio communication.
At 9:49 a.m. MSK, Vostok 1 entered Earth's shadow over the Pacific Ocean . Gagarin later described the transition between day and night as very abrupt. At around 9:51 a.m. MSK, the sun sensors of the attitude control activated, which later aligned the spaceship for the brake ignition. In addition, at 9:57 a.m. MSK, the command to start the landing system was sent to the spaceship by a ground station in Khabarovsk . Meanwhile, Gagarin falsely reported that he was over the United States, even though he was crossing the South Pacific towards Cape Horn at the time .
Towards the end of the orbit, Gagarin ate a small amount of food squeezed into tubes. He stated that although he did not have any problems with eating, the pureed foods were no substitute for earthly foods. Overall, the entrained foods had a nutritional value of 2,772 kilo calories , the experts of the Soviet Academy of Sciences had been calculated.
Re-entry and landing
Less than an hour after take-off, Gagarin began preparations for re-entry into the earth's atmosphere by, among other things, lowering the shutters on two of the three portholes and closing his helmet visor. The Vostok spacecraft, which had left the Earth's shadow at 10:09 a.m. MSK , was meanwhile in a slight rotation in order to distribute the solar radiation evenly over the surface. Later, with the help of the sun sensors , the spacecraft was brought into the correct position for the brake ignition, in which the engine is oriented against the direction of flight. At 10:25 a.m. MSK fired the TDU-1 brake rocket for exactly 40 seconds in order to reduce speed and thus initiate re-entry. When the brake engine was switched off over Africa, Gagarin noticed a slight increase in the g-forces.
Shortly after the successful ignition of the brake , the mission's only serious incident occurred because the larger part of the spaceship's equipment did not separate from the manned landing capsule as intended. Gagarin was aware of the problem with the indicator lights in the cabin and estimated that the additional mass of the device part would move the landing site of the capsule to the Far East of the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the spacecraft began to turn around its own axis at high speed, as it could not find its natural center of gravity with the device part .
“The rotation was about 30 degrees per second, at least. It was a perfect 'corps de ballet': head, then foot, head, then foot, circling quickly. (...) I had just enough time to cover myself up to protect my eyes from the sun's rays. "
Even two minutes after the end of the brake ignition, the part of the device had not yet been separated. Although the actual separating device apparently separated the two modules from one another on time, the two components remained loosely connected to one another by some cables, so that the spaceship entered the earth's atmosphere with the heavy landing capsule ahead. Gagarin remained extremely calm during the incident and informed the ground station that everything on board was proceeding normally. The separation of the device part finally took place 10 minutes later than planned at 10:35 a.m. MSK after the cables between the two modules had burned out due to atmospheric friction . A little later the rotation of the spaceship decreased.
After the end of the flight, Gagarin described in detail the course of the re-entry. For example, he reported a purple glow that developed around the portholes. In addition, Gagarin felt a brief increase in the degree of exercise to 10 g, which impaired his eyesight for two to three seconds and he could only see the instrument panel blurred. After the capsule broke the sound barrier , the g-forces decreased again.
At an altitude of 7,000 meters, the main parachute of the spaceship opened. A little later, the hatch behind Gagarin's head was detached from an explosive charge and two seconds later Gagarin was catapulted out of the landing capsule using an ejector seat . The landing region was only a short distance from the predicted area near the city of Saratov , where the cosmonauts' training jumps had taken place. Gagarin separated from his seat and his parachute opened. Shortly before touchdown, the reserve parachute also released, but without unfolding or getting caught in the lines of the main parachute. At 10:55 a.m. MSK, Gagarin landed relatively gently in a fallow field after an hour and 48 minutes' flight time. The landing site ( 51 ° 16 ′ 49 ″ N , 45 ° 58 ′ 36 ″ E ) was 26 kilometers southwest of the city of Engels in Saratov Oblast , near the village of Smelowka . The first to find Gagarin was a farmer's wife and granddaughter, a few technicians and soldiers. The empty landing capsule went down about 2.5 kilometers away in a small ravine near a house. A few days later, a monument was erected at the landing point of the spaceship.
Gagarin was later taken by the rescue teams to a military base near Engels, where he received a congratulatory telegram from the Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev . He reported by telephone to the Commander in Chief of the Soviet Air Force that he had successfully completed the mission assigned to him. The cosmonaut was then driven to a dacha on the Volga in Samara , where his substitute German Titow conveyed the congratulations of the entire cosmonaut group to him. He also learned that he was promoted to the rank of major . The day after the flight, April 13, Gagarin gave the state commission a detailed account of the flight. A tape recording of this "top secret" report was played to members of the Central Committee on April 19.
Reactions and historical significance
The flight from Vostok 1, along with the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik and the Mir space station, is one of the greatest successes of the Soviet space program. Yuri Gagarin's mission is often compared to other groundbreaking research trips such as the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus or Charles Lindbergh's flight over the Atlantic . In the Soviet Union, the successful implementation of the first manned space flight was also viewed as a great triumph in the Cold War against the United States. As the historian and space expert Asif Siddiqi wrote in his book Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the space race , the conditions in the Soviet Union were extremely unfavorable.
“The fact that this achievement was successfully carried out by the Soviet Union, a country completely devastated by war only 16 years earlier, makes this achievement even more impressive. Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union began from a position of tremendous disadvantage. The industrial infrastructure had been destroyed and, at best, its technological capabilities obsolete. Much of her country had been ravaged by war and she had lost approximately 25 million citizens. As a result, comparisons of the incredibly tight race between the two superpowers in the years after Sputnik are flawed in some respects due to a lack of context. "
Soviet Union
The news of the start of Vostok 1 was spread in the Soviet Union through a message from the official TASS news agency. The announcement was written prior to takeoff at the NII-4 military research institute and was sent in advance to key media outlets in the Soviet Union. 55 minutes after the successful start, the communiqué was finally read out by the well-known news anchor Yuri Levitan on Radio Moscow .
“This is Radio Moscow speaking. This message is broadcast by all radio stations in the Soviet Union (...) The world's first spaceship, 'Vostok', was launched today from the Soviet Union with a human on board into orbit above the earth. The cosmonaut pilot of the spaceship 'Vostok' is a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, pilot major Juri Alexejewitsch Gagarin. "
The landing of Gagarin on the parachute was kept secret by the official authorities for a previously unknown reason and they always talked about a soft landing of the spaceship with Gagarin on board. In the Komsomolskaya Pravda , however, an uncensored article appeared (which was also copied from some GDR newspapers) whose correspondents had spoken to the villagers of the village and contained a truthful report of the landing.
On the morning of April 14th, Gagarin flew with a small group of officials and correspondents to Moscow, where the official celebrations for his return were taking place. When he landed at Vnukovo Airport , the streets of Moscow had gathered the largest crowd since the victory celebrations in 1945. Gagarin received the Hero of the Soviet Union award; in addition, he received the title of aviation cosmonaut of the Soviet Union , which was donated on the occasion of his flight. A car parade accompanied Gagarin to Red Square, where, in addition to members of the space program, Soviet party leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Frol Kozlov had gathered.
United States
In the USA, Vostok 1 led to reactions similar to those of Sputnik 1 four years earlier , which is why these reactions are also called Gagarin shock.
At the time of Vostok 1's flight, the US was about to launch its first manned space flight, Mercury-Redstone 3 . However, the chosen astronaut Alan Shepard was supposed to only perform a suborbital mission at high altitude on board the Mercury capsule and not a full orbit. The start of Mercury-Redstone 3 had been delayed by problems in a previous test flight , as the team led by German aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun pushed for another unmanned test flight to test various changes to the launcher. The US space agency NASA was only able to start Mercury-Redstone 3 in early May 1961.
A few days before the start of Vostok 1, the US foreign intelligence service, the CIA , received information about an imminent manned flight. Twenty minutes after the flight began, an NSA intelligence station in Alaska was able to receive television signals from the Vostok spacecraft, which Gagarin showed in his cabin. The message was forwarded to CIA headquarters in Washington, where a report was being prepared for President John F. Kennedy .
“No one is more sick than me [seeing the United States second behind Soviet triumphs]. I hope we will be able to realize our efforts this year, but we are behind. The news will get worse before it gets better and it will be some time before we catch up. "
Discussion about recognition as a new record
In the western world a discussion broke out, sometimes still going on today, as to whether Gagarin's flight should be recognized as a new record. For this purpose, reference was made to the rules of the International Air Sports Federation FAI , according to which the pilot must not leave the aircraft during the entire flight. However, since Gagarin left his spaceship before the actual landing and returned to Earth with a separate parachute, this does not strictly comply with the FAI rules. In this context, it was repeatedly claimed that the Soviet Union kept the details of the landing secret for years in order not to endanger the recognition of Vostok 1. However, this claim is incorrect. So appeared z. B. on April 13, 1961 in the GDR newspaper Junge Welt a multi-page report about Vostok 1, in which the exit of the cosmonaut from the spaceship is both mentioned in the text and shown schematically in the picture.
Even today, Vostok 1 is registered with the FAI as the first record in the category of manned orbital flight (K-2), in the sub-category of flight altitude in an elliptical orbit with a single-seat spaceship.
See also
Remarks
- ↑ For a detailed summary of the test flights, see Newkirk: Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight . P. 18ff and Hall / Shayler. P. 114ff
swell
literature
- Rex D. Hall, David J. Shayler: The Rocket Men: Vostok & Voskhod. The First Soviet Manned Spaceflights . Springer, Berlin 2001.
- Asif A. Siddiqi: Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the space race, 1945-1974 . NASA SP-2000-4408, 2000.
- Dennis Newkirk: Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight . Gulf Publishing Company, Houston 1990.
- Peter Stache: Kedr calls Zarya - tape recordings from the first manned space flight. In: Peter Bork (Ed.): Fliegerkalender der DDR 1986. Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1985, pp. 27–35.
Web links
- Sven Grahn: An analysis of the flight of Vostok (analysis of train and radio contact, English)
- Wostok 1 at spacefacts.de
- Vostok 1 at space.kursknet.ru (English / Russian , archived 2016)
- Wostok 1 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Wostok 1 in the NSSDCA Master Catalog (English)
- rtc.ru: ПЕРВЫЙ ПОЛЕТ ЧЕЛОВЕКА В КОСМОС ( Memento from April 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (Selected documents, Russian)
- russianspaceweb.com: [1] interactive map of the course of the mission (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c FliegerRevue April 2011, pp. 45–47, Gagarin's flight into history
- ↑ Kamanin diaries in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed April 2, 2016. See entry March 17, 1961.
- Rex D. Hall, David J. Shayler: The Rocket Men: Vostok & Voskhod. The First Soviet Manned Spaceflights . 1st edition. Springer Praxis, 2001, ISBN 978-1-85233-391-1 .
- Asif A. Siddigi: Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974. (PDF) NASA, accessed April 13, 2014 .
