IG: Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin — the 1st Man in Space

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, (9 March 1934–27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule, Vostok 1, completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961.

Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including “Hero of the Soviet Union”, his nation’s highest honour.

Vostok 1 was Gagarin’s only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.

Gagarin began flying regular military aircraft again in Feb, 1968, and died five weeks later when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Gagarin’s farewell to mission control at launch was the informal phrase Poyekhali! (roughly translated to “Let’s Roll!”.

The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit.

Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan. Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth.

At about 7,000 metres (23,000 ft), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. Gagarin was recognised as a qualified Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.

Gagarin’s flight was a triumph for the Soviet space programme and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight.

He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to the World War II Victory Parades.