Vostok (spacecraft)

Vostok

Model of Vostok 3KA spacecraft with third stage of launcher.
Manufacturer	OKB-1
Designer	Sergei Korolev
Country of origin	Soviet Union
Operator	OKB-1
Applications	Manned spaceflight
Specifications
Crew capacity	1
Regime	Low Earth
Production
Status	Retired
Built	10+
Retired	June 19, 1963
First launch	May 15, 1960
Related spacecraft
Derivatives	Zenit Foton Voskhod
Vostok 1 return capsule in the RKK Energia Museum, Moscow

The Vostok (Russian: Восток, translated as "East") was a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union. The first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on this spacecraft on April 12, 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

The spacecraft was part of the Vostok programme in which six manned spaceflights were made from 1961–63. Two further manned space flights were made in 1964 and 1965 by Voskhod spacecraft, which were modified Vostok spacecraft. By the late 1960s both were superseded by the Soyuz spacecraft, which are still used as of 2017^[update].

The Vostok spacecraft was originally designed for use both as a camera platform (for the Soviet Union's first spy satellite program, Zenit) and as a manned spacecraft. This dual-use design was crucial in gaining Communist Party support for the program. The basic Vostok design has remained in use for some 40 years, gradually adapted for a range of other unmanned satellites. The descent module design was reused, in heavily modified form, by the Voskhod program.

The craft consisted of a spherical descent module (mass 2.46 tonnes, diameter 2.3 meters), which housed the cosmonaut, instruments and escape system, and a conical instrument module (mass 2.27 tonnes, 2.25 m long, 2.43 m wide), which contained propellant and the engine system. On reentry, the cosmonaut would eject from the craft at about 7,000 m (23,000 ft) and descend via parachute, while the capsule would land separately. The reason for this was that the Vostok descent module made an extremely rough landing that could have left a cosmonaut seriously injured.