First Human Spaceflight (12 April 1961)
Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight in the Vostok program and the first human spaceflight in history launched by the Soviet Union. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961. The flight took Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, into space. The flight marked the first time that a human entered outer space, as well as the first orbital flight of a manned vehicle. The spaceflight consisted of a single orbit of the Earth (to this date the shortest orbital manned spaceflight).
First Planetary flyby (19 may 1961)
Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year, however radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.
The probe was equipped with scientific instruments including a flux-gate magnetometer attached to the antenna boom, two ion traps to measure solar wind, micrometeorite detectors, and Geiger counter tubes and a Sodium Iodide scintillator for measurement of cosmic radiation. An experiment attached to one solar panel measured temperatures of experimental coatings. Infrared and/or ultraviolet radiometers may have been included. The dome contained a KDU-414 engine used for mid-course corrections. Temperature control was achieved by motorized thermal shutters.
The probe was equipped with scientific instruments including a flux-gate magnetometer attached to the antenna boom, two ion traps to measure solar wind, micrometeorite detectors, and Geiger counter tubes and a Sodium Iodide scintillator for measurement of cosmic radiation. An experiment attached to one solar panel measured temperatures of experimental coatings. Infrared and/or ultraviolet radiometers may have been included. The dome contained a KDU-414 engine used for mid-course corrections. Temperature control was achieved by motorized thermal shutters.
First Primate in space -- Ham the chimpanzee (13 january 1962)
Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) was the penultimate test flight of the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle prior to the first manned American space mission in Project Mercury. It was launched on January 31, 1961 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Mercury spacecraft No. 5 carried Ham the Chimp, a chimpanzee, on a suborbital flight, landing in the Atlantic Ocean 16 minutes and 39 seconds after launch.
The previous Mercury-Redstone mission, MR-1A, flew a trajectory that was too steep with accelerations too high for a human passenger. MR-1A had climbed to its programmed apogee of about 130 miles (209 km) and landed 235 miles (378 km) downrange. Mercury-Redstone 2 would follow a more flattened trajectory. Its planned flight path was an apogee of 115 miles (185 km) and a range of 290 miles (467 km).
The previous Mercury-Redstone mission, MR-1A, flew a trajectory that was too steep with accelerations too high for a human passenger. MR-1A had climbed to its programmed apogee of about 130 miles (209 km) and landed 235 miles (378 km) downrange. Mercury-Redstone 2 would follow a more flattened trajectory. Its planned flight path was an apogee of 115 miles (185 km) and a range of 290 miles (467 km).
First orbital solar observatory (7 march 1962)
The Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) Program was the name of a series of nine American science satellites primarily intended to study the Sun, though they also included important non-solar experiments. Eight were launched successfully by NASA between 1962 and 1975 using Delta rockets. Their primary mission was to observe an 11-year sun spot cycle in UV and X-ray spectra. The initial seven, OSO 1 to 7 were built by Ball Aerospace in Boulder Colorado. OSO 8 was built by Hughes Space and Communications Company, in Culver City, California.
The basic design of the entire series featured a rotating section, the "Wheel," to provide gyroscopic stability. A second section, the "Sail," was driven electrically against the Wheel's rotation, and stabilized to point at the Sun. The Sail carried pointed solar instruments, and also the array of solar photovoltaic cells which powered the spacecraft. The critical bearing between the Wheel and the Sail was a major feature of the design, as it had to operate smoothly for months in the hard vacuum of space without normal lubrication. It also carried both the power from the Sail and the data from the pointed solar instruments to the Wheel, where most of the spacecraft functions were located. Additional science instruments could also be located in the Wheel, generally looking out on a rotating radius vector which scanned the sky, and also across the Sun, every few seconds.
The basic design of the entire series featured a rotating section, the "Wheel," to provide gyroscopic stability. A second section, the "Sail," was driven electrically against the Wheel's rotation, and stabilized to point at the Sun. The Sail carried pointed solar instruments, and also the array of solar photovoltaic cells which powered the spacecraft. The critical bearing between the Wheel and the Sail was a major feature of the design, as it had to operate smoothly for months in the hard vacuum of space without normal lubrication. It also carried both the power from the Sail and the data from the pointed solar instruments to the Wheel, where most of the spacecraft functions were located. Additional science instruments could also be located in the Wheel, generally looking out on a rotating radius vector which scanned the sky, and also across the Sun, every few seconds.
First Woman in Space (19 June 1963)
Vostok 6 was the first human spaceflight mission to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, into space. This also made her the first civilian in space. The spacecraft was launched on June 16, 1963. Data was collected on the female body's reaction to spaceflight. Like other cosmonauts on Vostok missions, she maintained a flight log, took photographs, and manually oriented the spacecraft. Her photographs of the horizon from space were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere. The mission, a joint flight with Vostok 5, was originally conceived as being a joint mission with two Vostoks each carrying a female cosmonaut, but this changed as the Vostok program experienced cutbacks as a precursor to the retooling of the program into the Voskhod program. Vostok 6 was the last flight of a Vostok 3KA spacecraft.
It was revealed in 2004 that an error in the control program made the spaceship ascend from orbit instead of descending. Tereshkova noticed the fault on the first day of the flight and reported it to Sergey Korolev. The mistake was promptly repaired. Tereshkova entered the data that she got from the Earth into the descent program and landed safely.
It was revealed in 2004 that an error in the control program made the spaceship ascend from orbit instead of descending. Tereshkova noticed the fault on the first day of the flight and reported it to Sergey Korolev. The mistake was promptly repaired. Tereshkova entered the data that she got from the Earth into the descent program and landed safely.
First extra-vehicular activity (18 march 1965)
Voskhod 2 was a Soviet manned space mission in March 1965. Vostok-based Voskhod 3KD spacecraft with two crew members on board, Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov, was equipped with an inflatable airlock. It established another milestone in space exploration when Alexey Leonov became the first person to leave the spacecraft in a specialized spacesuit to conduct a 12 minute "spacewalk".
First mars flyby (14 july 1965)
Mariner 4 (together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner–Mars 1964) was the fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations toEarth. Launched on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars returning the first pictures of the Martian surface. It captured the first images of another planet ever returned from deep space; their depiction of a cratered, seemingly dead world largely changed the view of the scientific community on life on Mars. Other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in interplanetary space in the vicinity of Mars and to provide experience in and knowledge of the engineering capabilities for interplanetary flights of long duration. On December 21, 1967 communications with Mariner 4 were terminated.