Vostok 2
| Mission dates | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mission: | Vostok 2 | ||
| NSSDCA ID : | 1961-019A | ||
| Call sign: | Орёл (Oryol - "eagle") | ||
| Dimensions: | 4731 kg | ||
| Begin: | August 6, 1961, 06:00 UT | ||
| Starting place: | Baikonur 1/5 | ||
| Landing: | August 7, 1961, 07:18 UT | ||
| Landing place: | 70 km SE of Engels 50 ° 51 ′ N , 47 ° 1 ′ E |
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| Flight duration: | 1d 1h 18min | ||
| Earth orbits: | 17th | ||
| Orbital time : | 88.46 min | ||
| Orbit inclination : | 64.93 ° | ||
| Apogee : | 232 km | ||
| Perigee : | 166 km | ||
| Covered track: | 703,000 km | ||
| ◄ Before / After ► | |||
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Vostok 2 (Russian восток, east) was a manned space flight of the Soviet "Vostok" program . The cosmonaut German Stepanowitsch Titow orbited the earth for over 25 hours. It was the second and so far the longest space flight. Titov still holds the record as the youngest space flier in Earth orbit.
crew
- German Stepanowitsch Titow , (1st flight)
Substitute team
Support team
preparation
After the successful flight of Yuri Gagarin , the second Vostok flight should take place over a longer period. It was disputed whether one should plan only three or even 18 orbits of the earth. Eventually, Sergei Korolyov , the chief designer of the Soviet missile program, prevailed, and the longer flight was planned.
German Titow was nominated as a pilot, who was 1 substitute for Yuri Gagarin at Wostok . Andrijan Nikolajew became a substitute pilot for Titov , who was thus able to raise his hopes for the next Vostok flight.
Flight history
Vostok 2 took off on August 6, 1961 at 6:00 a.m. world time from the Baikonur rocket launch site and reached Earth orbit after a few minutes.
This new space flight was announced by Radio Moscow just under two hours after the launch , including the radio frequencies. Shortly after the launch, Titov spoke to Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev by radio . When Titov crossed North America, he sent a message of greeting to the American people.
In contrast to Yuri Gagarin at Vostok 1, Titov took over the control of the spaceship himself for a time. He recorded about 10 minutes of film through the porthole of the spaceship. After a few hours, symptoms of the previously unknown space sickness became noticeable: Titov was dizzy and vomited. Nevertheless, he managed to sleep for several hours.
As with Vostok 1, re-entry was not entirely problem-free because the orbital module did not separate completely from the return capsule. Only after some connections had burned up was Vostok 2 in a stable position. Titov catapulted himself with the ejection seat from the return capsule and landed on parachute at Krasny Kut in the Oblast Saratov .
meaning
The flight of Vostok 2 proved that humans could survive several hours in weightlessness , but Titov's space sickness was an inexplicable obstacle to further space flights.
The distance in manned space travel from the USA was further increased. A few weeks later, the Americans succeeded in making a chimpanzee orbit the earth twice with Mercury-Atlas 5 and land unharmed, the first orbital flight of an American followed with Mercury-Atlas 6 seven months to Vostok 2. The next orbital space flight of the Soviet Union took place a year later in August 1962 with Vostok 3 .
Titov was only 25 years old when Vostok 2 flew and held the record as the youngest person in space for almost 60 years before he was replaced by the Dutch space tourist Oliver Daemen (18 years old) in July 2021 . However, Titov is still the youngest spaceman to reach orbit around Earth.
Web links
- Sven Grahn: The flight of Vostok-2 (English)
- Wostok 2 at spacefacts.de
- Wostok 2 at space.kursknet.ru (English / Russian , archived 2016)
- Wostok 2 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Wostok 2 in the NSSDCA Master Catalog (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bezos takes the youngest person to date into space - and the oldest. In: Spiegel Online. July 18, 2021, accessed July 28, 2021 .
