Following a series of tests and checks, about forty minutes after Gagarin entered the spacecraft, its hatch was closed.

* 1961 – The Russian ( Soviet ) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 ( Vostok 1 ).

The first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on a derivative of R-7, Vostok, on 12 April 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth aboard Vostok 1 manned spacecraft on 12 April 1961.

The Soviet space program achieved many of the first milestones, including the first living being in orbit in 1957, the first human spaceflight ( Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1 ) in 1961, the first spacewalk ( by Aleksei Leonov ) in 1965, the first automatic landing on another celestial body in 1966, and the launch of the first space station ( Salyut 1 ) in 1971.

27-year-old Yuri Gagarin was the only crew member of Vostok 1.

Once Gagarin was in the Vostok 1 spacecraft, his picture appeared on television screens in the launch control room from an onboard camera.

Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1

* 06: 25 UT As Vostok 1 begins its diagonal crossing of the Pacific Ocean from Kamchatka peninsula to the southern tip of South America, Gagarin asks, " What can you tell me about the flight?

" They tell Gagarin that Vostok 1 is in a stable orbit.

* 06: 57 UT Vostok 1 is over the South Pacific between New Zealand and Chile when Gagarin sends this message, "... I'm continuing the flight, and I'm over America.

At 07: 55 UT, when Vostok 1 was still 7 km from the ground, the hatch of the spacecraft was released, and two seconds later Gagarin was ejected.

Although some contemporary Soviet sources stated that Gagarin had parachuted separately to the ground, the Soviet Union officially insisted that he had landed with the Vostok ; the government forced the cosmonaut to lie in press conferences, and the FAI certified the flight.

The Soviet Union did not admit until 1971 that Gagarin had ejected and landed separately from the Vostok descent module.

In 2011, documentary film maker Christopher Riley partnered with European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli to record a new film of what Gagarin would have seen of the Earth from his spaceship, by matching historical audio recordings to video from the International Space Station following the ground path taken by Vostok 1.

Gagarin was further selected for an elite training group known as the Sochi Six, from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen.

Out of the twenty selected, the eventual choices for the first launch were Gagarin and Gherman Titov due to their performance during training sessions as well as their physical characteristics — space was limited in the small Vostok cockpit, and both men were rather short.

On 12 April 1961, aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 ( Vostok 1 ), Gagarin became both the first human to travel into space, and the first to orbit the earth.

** Vostok 1: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, orbiting the Earth once.

The first manned spacecraft was Vostok 1, which carried Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, and completed a full Earth orbit.

* The Seliger system was tested during the 1960 launches of the Vostok capsule, including Sputnik 5, containing the space dogs Belka and Strelka, whose images are often mistaken for the dog Laika and the 1961 flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space on Vostok 1.

* 1961-the USSR launches Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin reached a height of 327 km above Earth and was the first man to orbit earth.

Gagarin was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov in the Soyuz 1 flight, which was launched despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.

On 1 August 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the Fallen Astronaut on the surface of the Moon as a memorial to all the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts that died in the Space Race, with Yuri Gagarin listed among 14 others.

The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, was Russian, and the first artificial satellite to be put into outer space, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union and was developed mainly by Sergey Korolyov who had a Russian father ( his mother was Ukrainian ).

He earned 528 rubles a year, with only cosmonauts 1 and 2 Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov being more highly paid.

Komarov was selected to command the Soyuz 1, in 1967, with Yuri Gagarin as his backup cosmonaut.

Before leaving the Moon on Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong's final task was to place a small package of memorial items to honor Komarov, Yuri Gagarin, and the Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee.

The first person to fly in space, Yuri Gagarin, became also the first to complete an orbital spaceflight on spaceship Vostok 1, in 1961.

As planned, Gagarin landed separately from his spacecraft, having ejected with a parachute above ground.

The ground station at Khabarovsk reports back, " There are no instructions from No. 20 ( Sergey Korolyov ), and the flight is proceeding normally " They are telling Gagarin that they don't have his orbital parameters yet because the spacecraft has been in orbit for only 6 minutes, but the spacecraft systems are performing well.

" They were asking Gagarin to report when the spacecraft automated descent system had received its instructions from the ground control.

* 07: 04 UT Gagarin sends spacecraft status message, similar to the one sent at 06: 48.

* 07: 09 UT Gagarin sends spacecraft status message, the message is not received by ground stations.

* 07: 13 UT Gagarin sends spacecraft status message, similar to the one sent at 06: 48.

* 07: 18 UT Gagarin sends spacecraft status message, the message is not received by ground stations.

* 07: 23 UT Gagarin sends spacecraft status message, the message is not received by ground stations.

The Soviet press later reported that minutes before boarding the spacecraft Gagarin made a speech: " Dear friends, you who are close to me, and you whom I do not know, fellow Russians, and people of all countries and all continents: in a few minutes a powerful space vehicle will carry me into the distant realm of space.

One source reports that before boarding the spacecraft, Komarov feared for his life, but he flew anyway in order to spare Gagarin the same fate.

In May 1967, Gagarin and Leonov criticised Mishin's " poor knowledge of the Soyuz spacecraft and the details of its operation, his lack of cooperation in working with the cosmonauts in flight and training activities " and asked Kamanin for him to be cited in the official report into the crash.

He was an expert in spacecraft, especially Russian ones and worked as a translator from Russian during Juriy Gagarin visit to Sweden.

Unlike Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Titov took manual control of the spacecraft for a short while.

As with Titov on Vostok 2 — but unlike Gagarin on Vostok 1 — Nikolayev would admit to reporters that he ejected and parachuted to earth separately from his spacecraft.

The first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on this spacecraft on April 12, 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

In 2004, Thirsk trained at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow and became certified as a Flight Engineer for the Soyuz spacecraft.

In 1994, Cameron served as the first NASA Director of Operations in Star City, Russia, where he worked with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center staff to set up a support system for astronaut operations and training in Star City, and received Russian training in Soyuz and Mir spacecraft systems, and flight training in Russian L-39 aircraft.

The FAI initially did not recognize the achievement because he did not land in his Vostok spacecraft ( he ejected from it ), but later it recognized that Gagarin was the first human to fly into space.