| NASA Center: |
Headquarters |
|---|
| Image # : |
gagarin01 |
|---|
| Date : |
04/12/1961
|
|---|
|
Title
Gagarin on his way to Vostok Launch
Full Description
A pensive Yuri Gagarin is in the bus on the way to the launch pad
on the morning of April 12, 1961. Behind him, seated, is his
backup, German Titov. Standing are cosmonauts Grigoriy Nelyubov
and Andrian Nikolayev.
Yuri Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in a town outside of
Moscow, Russia. After graduating from secondary school in 1949,
Gagarin went to several technical schools before joining the
Orenburg Higher Air Force School in 1955. He began his cosmonaut
training in 1960, along with 19 other candidates. On April 12,
1961 at 9:06 am Gagarin lifted off in the Vostok 1 spacecraft and
after a 108-minute flight of extended microgravity, he parachuted
safely to the ground in the Saratov region of the USSR. As the
first human to fly in space, he successfully completed one orbit
around the Earth. After his historic flight, Gagarin became an
international symbol for the Soviet space program and in 1963 was
appointed deputy director of the Cosmonaut Training Center. In
1966 he served as a backup crewmember for Soyuz 1 and on February
17, 1968, completed a graduate degree in technical sciences.
Tragically, during flight training in a UTI-MiG-15 aircraft on
March 27, 1968, Gagarin was killed when his plane crashed.
Keywords
Yuri Gagarin German Titov Nelyubov Nikolayev Vostok
Subject Category
Soviet People-Cosmonauts
Reference Numbers
- Center:
HQ
- Center Number:
gagarin01
- GRIN DataBase Number:
GPN-2002-000168
Source Information
- Original Source: DIGITAL
- Source/Capture Information: Asif Siddiqi
| Resolution | Format | Width
(Pixels) | Height
(Pixels) | Size
(KBytes) |
Thumbnail |
JPEG |
54 |
49 |
5 |
Small |
JPEG |
384 |
347 |
91 |
Medium |
JPEG |
900 |
813 |
461 |
Large |
JPEG |
1800 |
1625 |
1,406 |
Publication Information
Image from the files of Asif Siddiqi. Image and caption from
Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-
1974 (NASA SP-2000-4408) by Asif A. Siddiqi.
Please note that the image number assigned to this image is not
an official NASA number. It is for GRIN database purposes only.
Other relevant NASA Web sites:
• NASA Headquarters
• NASA History Office
• NASA Image eXchange (NIX)
• NASA Multimedia Gallery
• NASA Human Spaceflight
Updated October 31, 2002
• History Questions: NASA History Office
• Responsible NASA Official: Steve Garber
• Author: Michael Hahn. Editor: Dwayne A. Day
• Curator & Technical Questions: Erin Needham
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