Vostok 2
Model of the Vostok capsule with its upper stage
|
|||||
| Operator | Soviet space program | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard designation | 1961 Tau 1 | ||||
| SATCAT № | 168 | ||||
| Mission duration | 1 day, 1 hour, 18 minutes | ||||
| Orbits completed | 17.5 | ||||
| Spacecraft properties | |||||
| Spacecraft | Vostok-3KA No.4 | ||||
| Manufacturer | Experimental Design OKB-1 | ||||
| Launch mass | 4,731 kilograms (10,430 lb) | ||||
| Crew | |||||
| Crew size | 1 | ||||
| Members | Gherman Titov | ||||
| Callsign | Орёл (Oryol - "Eagle") | ||||
| Start of mission | |||||
| Launch date | August 6, 1961, 06:00 UTC | ||||
| Rocket | Vostok-K 8K72K | ||||
| Launch site | Baikonur 1/5 | ||||
| End of mission | |||||
| Landing date | August 7, 1961, 07:18 UTC | ||||
| Landing site |
Krasny Kut 50°51′10″N 47°01′14″E / 50.85276°N 47.02048°E |
||||
| Orbital parameters | |||||
| Reference system | Geocentric | ||||
| Regime | Low Earth | ||||
| Perigee | 183 kilometres (114 mi) | ||||
| Apogee | 244 kilometres (152 mi) | ||||
| Inclination | 64.93 degrees | ||||
| Period | 88.46 minutes | ||||
|
|
|||||
Vostok 2 (Russian: Восток-2, Orient 2 or East 2) was a Soviet space mission which carried cosmonaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day on August 6, 1961 to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body. Titov orbited the Earth over 17 times, exceeding the single orbit of Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 − as well as the suborbital spaceflights of American astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom aboard their respective Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4 missions. Indeed, Titov's number of orbits and flight time would not be surpassed by an American astronaut until Gordon Cooper's Mercury-Atlas 9 spaceflight in May 1963.
After the flight of Vostok 1, Sergei Korolev took a short vacation in Crimea where he began working out the flight plan for the next mission. There were considerable arguments over the duration of the mission as flight doctors argued for no more than three orbits. The flight of Korabl-Sputnik 2 nine months earlier had carried two dogs on a six orbit mission, during which the animals had experienced convulsions and thus all subsequent Vostok missions were limited to three orbits maximum. Although dogs and humans were very different physiologically, the doctors were worried about the risks posed on a longer flight. There was also the purely practical aspect of spacecraft recovery. If Vostok 2 flew three orbits, reentry and landing would take place in the wide open steppes of southern Russia, the landing site moving steadily further west with each orbit. Orbits 8-13 would drop the capsule into the Pacific Ocean, after which landing would again occur in Soviet territory, but in the remote, frozen wastes of Siberia. Thus, it was necessary to spend a full 24 hours in space before it would be once again possible to land in the prime recovery area in southern Russia. The three orbit limit thus would not only make landing easy, but minimize risks to the cosmonaut posed by prolonged weightlessness.
...
Wikipedia