On April 12, Russia celebrates Cosmonautics Day.
On April 12, Russia celebrates Cosmonautics Day. On this day in 1961, Yury Gagarin became the first man in space. After his ship Vostok reentered the atmosphere, the cosmonaut ejected himself and landed in this descent module not far from Engels in the Saratov Region.
But space exploration began much earlier. On October 4, 1957, the U.S.S.R. launched the first artificial Earth satellite developed under the direction of Sergei Korolyov. The satellite, called Sputnik-1, had a radio transmitter and weighed 83 kg.
On October 14, 1969, the Intercosmos-1 satellite was launched, inaugurating a broad program of space research. In the course of one year, four similar satellites were put into orbit.
The Meteor series of artificial Earth satellites collected information on the state of the atmosphere, Earth’s heat radiation, and charged particle flows.
Venera-1 was the first spacecraft designed to explore the planets. This automatic interplanetary vehicle was launched at 5:09 a.m. on February 12, 1961.
The Luna-1 automatic interplanetary probe heralded the exploration of the Earth’s moon.
The Luna-9 automatic interplanetary craft with closed petals was the first probe to make a soft landing on the moon and to relay a picture of the surface back to Earth in 1966.
The first lunar rover, Lunokhod-1, was delivered to the moon on November 17, 1970. It was designed to study the lunar surface, and to measure X-rays and space radioactivity. конструкторском бюро химкинского Машиностроительного завода имени С. А. Лавочкина под руководством Георгия Николаевича Бабакина. Самоходное шасси для Лунохода было создано во ВНИИТрансМаш под руководством Александра Леоновича Кемурджиана.
The Mars-2 automatic interplanetary probe was among the first to head for the Red Planet in May 1971.
Salyut-7 was a Soviet space station designed for scientific, technological, biological and medical studies in weightless conditions. Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman to make a space walk, worked aboard Salyut-7.
The Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft lifts off for the International Space Station from the Baikonur space center.
Soyuz TMA-12: the Russian transport spacecraft made the 41st manned flight to the International Space Station in 2008. The crew included the first cosmonaut from South Korea.
