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On August 19, 1960, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik V capsule containing a pair of dogs, Belka (“Whitey”) and Strelka (“Little Arrow”) that spent one day in space. They were the first living creatures to go into orbit and return safely. And they gave the Soviets confidence to send a human into space less than a year later.

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A famous photograph of Gagarin on his way for launch.

“Major Yuri Gagarin, the world’s first man to orbit Earth and return safely, in his spacesuit and helmet in bus en route to space ship at the Cosmodrome (Space Flight Airfield) somewhere in the Soviet Union, April 12” (Associated press caption).

Vostok 1 was the first crewed spaceflight in history, occurring 23 days prior to the first U.S. suborbital flight (Mercury Redstone 3 with Alan Shepard aboard on May 5, 1961). The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 12, 1961, with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard, making him the first human to cross into outer space and also to orbit the Earth.

The orbital spaceflight consisted of a single orbit around Earth which skimmed the upper atmosphere at 169 km (91 nautical miles) at its lowest point. The flight took 108 minutes from launch to landing. Gagarin parachuted to the ground separately from his capsule after ejecting at 7 km (23,000 ft) altitude.