In the late 1950s, having launched the space race by launching the shiny metal satellite Sputnik 1 into Earth’s orbit, the USSR developed the first spacecraft to land on the Moon and put the first animal into orbit. . With these successive victories over the American space program, the Soviets gained legitimate ground to claim technological supremacy on the world stage. However, while dogs and metal were one thing, Americans were not far behind, and there was still a decisive breakthrough that neither country had yet achieved, one that would capture the imagination and push humans into a new position. new epoch: send a person into space.
The Soviets began developing systems for a manned orbital satellite in 1958. The project was led by Mikhail Tikhonravov, who had worked on rocket design and space exploration with Sergei Korolev since 1933, and chief conceptual designer Konstantin Feoktistov, a scientist. stubborn and brilliant who hoped to visit space himself one day.
In April 1959, the team developed the secret project of designing a spacecraft capable of taking man into space, followed the following month by ballistic calculations with orbital descent options. The military gave them access to firing ranges, military specialists, troops, and most importantly the R-7A rocket, recently upgraded with an additional third stage capable of launching a five-ton payload into near orbit. Earth.
While the Americans had successfully developed the Discoverer spy satellite , which would later carry cameras and film, the Soviets still lacked the technology to bring ships back to Earth, something that was imperative for a manned mission. In order to speed things up, Prime Minister Khrushchev commissioned the OKB-1 Experimental Design Bureau to develop a satellite for reconnaissance and navigation along with a ‘sputnik for human flight’.
After some heated debates, Korolev signed a ballistic landing setup with a spherical descent module, to which a heat shield was added. An adjoining instrument compartment housing disposable hardware would simply shatter before entering the atmosphere.
As the United States continued to develop its own Atlas missile, capable of delivering more than 1.3 tons into orbit , the pressure mounted: failure at this critical juncture would completely undermine the cumulative propaganda victories of the Soviets. With the Americans planning to fly the first manned Mercury suborbital mission in 1961, a Soviet document – on a plan for mastery of cosmic space – required all tests to be completed before the end of the year.
The project had a name: Vostok , ‘East’. Composed of three ships – 1K, 2K and 3KA – the first was a reconnaissance satellite and the third the piloted spacecraft. The policy governing the program required that all assemblies, instruments and systems be tested and certified as ‘3KA fit’. The military carried out extensive checks, with lead designers and section chiefs taking personal responsibility for its components, ushering in a new era of quality and consistency for the Soviet space program.
One of Vostok’s first missions, Korabl-Sputnik 2 , brought a variety of life forms into orbit, notably the dogs Belka and Strekla, and was the first to safely bring animals back to Earth . However, Korolev was concerned that Belka had clearly become distressed during the fourth orbit and had vomited due to weightlessness. As a result, it decided to restrict its manned mission to no more than one orbit, with the ship automatically controlled from the ground and a manual override code delivered to the pilot in a sealed envelope, just in case.
Upon returning to Earth, the braking rocket motor would need to fire its thrust in the opposite direction to the orbital velocity vector of the spacecraft. Once the braking function was applied, the spacecraft would perform a braking turn: the atmosphere slammed the remaining energy to a halt. The spacecraft would communicate with Earth via a variety of radio links, along with the ability to transmit television signals from space.
As the project became increasingly complex, so did the OKB-1 bureaucracy, as the Council of Chief Designers saw its power dissipate between designers and organizations representing different disciplines. Although the Council of Six remained, Korolev had to bring in fifteen new voting members, representing a variety of agencies, from the Institute of Aviation Medicine to the Air Force Command. Korolev managed to establish himself at the top of this new hierarchy, called the space-rocket complex, by delegating to his deputies, who in turn worked with his top relevant designers. While the old guard did their best to mitigate risk, the young engineers put caution aside and created a healthy balance between ambition and control.
In 1960, only two of the five Korabl-Sputnik launches entered orbit and returned. With a ‘soft landing’ system still years away, the only way to guarantee a safe grounding for the astronaut was a two-step system, expelling the cosmonaut from the descent module with a parachute. The following year, two more missions took animals and mannequins into space, safely expelling the dummy, named Ivan Ivanovich .
After examining the records of 3,000 drivers, the team initially brought in 250 potential candidates. This number was slowly reduced by medical examinations, vigorous swivel chair training for weightlessness, and 10-day isolation chambers. Of the twelve candidates selected by the Air Force to enter the Cosmonaut Training Center, the six most promising were dubbed the Vanguard Six . Among them was a young man named Yuri Gagarin , who persevered through intense training and the Vostok simulator, TDK-1, the first of its kind in the USSR.
Finally, in March 1961, Korolev recommended launching a Vostok spacecraft with a human on board, approved the following month. Gagarin was selected to pilot the vehicle, with Gherman Titov as a backup.
April 12 was an auspicious day, marked by clear, sunny skies over the top-secret launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Gagarin hugged his companions and got into the elevator before entering the descent module. When technicians discovered that the hatch was not sealed properly, they had to reverse one to seal it, during which time Gagarin asked for music to be played on the radio.
Leaning back in his foam-padded ejection seat, he yelled, ‘Come on!’ And Vostok left. Two minutes later, the four leashed thrusters ran out of thrust and fell, and minutes later the rocket core phase followed suit. As the ship rose into space, Gagarin radioed: “Visibility is excellent! Through the window I see the Earth, the clouds, I see the rivers. It’s lovely’.
Its spherical cockpit featured three portholes, a life support system, radios, and various instruments. An attached service module housed batteries, targeting rockets, a retro system, and other equipment. After completing a single orbit and traveling 27 359 kilometers per hour, the service module detached and the descent module returned to Earth, with Gagarin ejected safely. Despite a few setbacks along the way, such as a brief detachment scare, the Soviets had made it through.
After landing, Gagarin, dressed in an orange suit with a white helmet, met a farmer and his daughter. “When they saw me in my spacesuit, and the parachute crawling as I walked, they started backing away out of fear. I told them, ‘Don’t be afraid. I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space, and I must find a telephone to call Moscow! ”
The psychological impact on both the United States and the USSR was profound: the Soviets emerged as the masters of space and technology . The United States, twenty-five days before suborbital flights, would have to set itself a very ambitious task to recover from such a defeat.
