Vostok 2

Key facts

Mission & specifications

Mission

Vostok 2 proved that humans could not just touch space but live and work there. Launched on 6 August 1961 — less than four months after Yuri Gagarin's single orbit — it carried Gherman Titov, at twenty-five still the youngest person ever to fly in space, on a full day in orbit. Where Gagarin had circled the Earth once, Titov circled it seventeen times over more than twenty-five hours, becoming the first person to spend a whole day in space, the first to sleep in orbit, and the first to suffer space sickness, the disorienting nausea that weightlessness can bring. He ate, slept, photographed the Earth and tested whether a person could function over a longer flight. His mission answered a question that mattered enormously as both superpowers planned longer journeys: that the human body, given time to adjust, could endure space. Titov's day in orbit was a quiet but essential step on the road from a single heroic lap to the months-long expeditions that would follow.

1. 1961Titov launchesLaunch

   Gherman Titov, 25, begins the first full day in orbit.

2. 1961A day in spaceMission end

   After 17 orbits and over 25 hours — the first person to sleep in space — Titov lands.

Images

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