Vostok 4

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Mission dates
Mission: Vostok 4
COSPAR-ID : 1962-037A
Spacecraft: Vostok
Dimensions: 4728 kg
Call sign: Беркут (Berkut - " golden eagle ")
Crew: 1
Begin: August 12, 1962, 08:02 UT
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Landing: August 15, 1962, 06:59 UT
Landing place: near Atassu , Karaganda Oblast
48 ° 10 'N, 71 ° 51' E
Flight duration: 2d 22h 57m
Earth orbits: 48
Rotation time : 88.39 min
Orbit inclination : 64.95 °
Apogee : 222 km
Perigee : 169 km
Covered track: 1.98 million km
◄ Before / After ►
Vostok 3
(manned) 		Vostok 5
(manned)

Vostok 4 was a manned space flight of the Soviet Vostok program . Together with Vostok 3 , the first double flight of manned space flight was undertaken. The cosmonaut Pavel Popovich stayed in orbit for almost three days.

crew

Stamp pad of the GDR (1962)

Substitute team

Support team

preparation

With the flight of Vostok 4, two manned spaceships should be in space at the same time for the first time. The planning and preparation for Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 was carried out in parallel.

Pavel Popovich was selected as the pilot, Vladimir Komarov was the substitute .

Flight history

Vostok 4 took off on August 12, 1962 at 11:02 a.m. Moscow time from the Baikonur rocket launch site , and after a few minutes reached Earth orbit with 159 km perigee and 211 km apogee at an inclination of 65 degrees. This runway was almost identical to that of Vostok 3 with Andrijan Nikolajew on board, which had started almost 24 hours earlier. That was the first time that two astronauts were in space at the same time.

Due to the highest precision at the start, the distance to Vostok 3 after reaching orbit was temporarily only 6 km, but increased to 2800 km by the end of the mission. Popovich and Nikolayev were in direct radio contact with each other during the flight. Due to a defect in the life support system, the temperature in the cabin dropped to 10 ° C.

After almost three days in space, Vostok 4 landed on August 15, 1962 at 9:59 a.m. Moscow time near Karaganda in what is now Kazakhstan . As usual with the Vostok flights, Popovich used the ejection seat and landed on his own parachute . Vostok 3 had landed just a few minutes earlier, setting a new all-time record for manned space travel.

meaning

The group flight of Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 was hailed as a great achievement of Soviet space travel. Even if it is now known that the spaceships could not be steered themselves, it can be seen as a great achievement to carry out two launches within 24 hours. The transmission of voice and telemetry to two spaceships at the same time was a special achievement, after all , there were no communications satellites at the time and, unlike the USA , the Soviet Union did not have a global network of ground stations.

The return capsule is exhibited in the "NPO Zvezda Museum" in Moscow , but has been modified so that it now represents the Vozhod-2 spaceship .

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