Korabl-Sputnik 5
| Mission type | Biological Technology |
|---|---|
| Harvard designation | 1961 Iota 1 |
| SATCAT no. | 95 |
| Mission duration | 1 hour, 46 minutes |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft type | Vostok-3KA |
| Manufacturer | OKB-1 |
| Launch mass | 4,695 kilograms (10,351 lb) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 25 March 1961, 05:54:00 UTC |
| Rocket | Vostok-K 8K72K s/n E103-15 |
| Launch site | Baikonur 1/5 |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | 25 March 1961, 07:40 UTC |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Perigee | 164 kilometres (102 mi) |
| Apogee | 230 kilometres (140 mi) |
| Inclination | 64.9 degrees |
| Period | 88.42 minutes |
Korabl-Sputnik 5 (Russian: Корабль-Спутник 5 meaning Ship-Satellite 5) or Vostok-3KA No.2, also known as Sputnik 10 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft which was launched in 1961, as part of the Vostok programme. It was the last test flight of the Vostok spacecraft design prior the first manned flight, Vostok 1. It carried the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Zvezdochka ("Starlet", or "Little star"), television cameras and scientific apparatus.
A spacecraft of the design Vostok 3KA had only been launched once before, which was on March 9, 1961. This mission was called Korabl-Sputnik 4, and it was a complete success. Prior to Korabl-Sputnik 4, the two previous missions in the Vostok programme were both launched in December 1960, and both ended in failure.
Only days before the launch of Korabl-Sputnik 5, the cosmonaut team, which consisted of 20 men, experienced its first fatality. Cosmonaut candidate Valentin Bondarenko was killed in a fire during a training exercise in an oxygen-rich isolation chamber. It's not clear whether other cosmonauts were told of his death; the media didn't learn of Bondarenko's death - or even of his existence - until many years later, in 1986.
Korabl-Sputnik 5 was launched at 05:54:00 UTC on 25 March 1961, atop a Vostok-K carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was successfully placed into low Earth orbit. As planned, the spacecraft completed a single orbit, and then reentered the atmosphere over the Soviet Union; the total flight time was approximately that of other single-orbit missions, so about 105 minutes. During the descent, the mannequin was ejected from the spacecraft in a successful test of its ejection seat, and descended separately under its own parachute, as it had done on the previous mission, Korabl-Sputnik 4. It landed at approximately 07:40 UTC, northeast of Izhevsk, near the Bolshesosnovsky District.
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