The Citation Space facts, properly cited.
Spacecraft / Vostok 1

Vostok 1

1961
Vostok 1
The scorched Vostok-5 reentry capsule and its ejection seat - one deck of the same spacecraft as Vostok 1 - at the K. E. Tsiolkovsky Museum of the History of Cosmonautics, Kaluga (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, photo by Stolbovsky).

The first crewed spacecraft. On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth once aboard Vostok 1 - a 2.3 m sphere with an escape tower.

Specs

Flight 12 Apr 1961, 06:07-07:55 UTC (108 min); 1 orbit; capsule ~4.7 t; Gagarin was strapped in - the capsule opened only after landing.

Why it matters

The first human to see Earth from space with their own eyes. The photos from that era - a blue sphere wrapped in a thin line of atmosphere - are the most powerful evidence of what our planet actually is.

Related

Sputnik 1 V-2 X-15 Yuri Gagarin Sergei Korolev

Linked from

Roscosmos - the Soviet inheritance Sergei Korolev Soyuz Sputnik 1 X-15 Yuri Gagarin

Sources

  1. Wikipedia - Vostok 1 (flight time, orbit) [1]