Journal of Aeronautics & Aerospace Engineering
Open Access

Space Ship

The Vostok capsule carried the first-ever human to make a spaceflight, the Soviet Union's cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who launched on April 12, 1961 and clocked in with just over one full orbit of Earth.Vostok could carry just one astronaut in its main spherical cabin, which perched atop a belt of life-support gas tanks and a pyramidical instrument module that was jettisoned before the cabin reentered Earth's atmosphere. A window near the astronaut's feet allowed them to observe Earth during flight.The capsule had no landing gear; instead, Gagarin and his successors ejected from the capsule during the reentry process, although the Soviet Union hid that fact lest the mission not be considered a true spaceflight.Vostok translates as "East;" Gagarin's capsule went by the call sign Swallow, according to NASA. Six Vostok capsules in all carried cosmonauts to orbit between 1961 and 1963; the capsule's final flight carried Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman in space