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Previous launches
Flight tasks and schedule
Orbital properties
TASS reports
First tests
This launch was intended to test the design of the satellite-spacecraft and its systems ensuring its safe flight, flight control and conditions favorable for the crew during the flight. When launched the first Soviet vehicle's cabin was not supposed to return to the Earth.
August 19, 1960 – launch of the second spacecraft.
That vehicle had a cabin equipped with everything
necessary for the future space flight of a man.
The main purpose of the spacecraft tests was
to upgrade the design and all the systems supporting crew's life, ensuring
its safe flight in airless cosmic space. So there were two dogs (Belka
and Strelka), mice, insects and plants onboard that vehicle for the bio-medical
purposes.
December 1,1960 – launch of the third spacecraft.
The main purpose of the spacecraft tests was
further upgrading of the design and all the systems supporting crew's life,
ensuring its safe flight in airless cosmic space. For the bio-medical research
of the space flight conditions there were test animals (Pchelka and Mushka
dogs), insects and plants. The animals' heath was being monitored through
the telemetry systems. As a result of an unexpected re-entry trajectory
the vehicle crashed while flying in the atmosphere.
March 9, 1961 – insertion of the satellite to
the Earth orbit, the fourth spacecraft. There were another test animal
– Chernushka dog, biological objects, telemetry, TV systems, orbit radio
tracking and communication systems.
March 25, 1961 - launch of the fifth spacecraft.
The main purpose of the fifth vehicle mission
was to improve its design, its systems intended to support crew's life
during the flight in airless space and bring the vehicle back to the Earth.
The spacecraft was equipped with a cabin that
accommodated Zvezdochka dog and other biological objects. It also had telemetry,
TV, orbit radio tracking and other systems.
After finishing the assigned research program
spacecraft-satellite successfully performed commanded descent on the same
day and landed at the expected landing site ejecting a model rigged out
as a cosmonaut.
Those tests of the five space vehicles preceded
a real manned flight to space. They also proved guaranteed operation of
the entire onboard systems.
MISSION OBJECTIVES
To study the possibility of human activity in space.
To improve and upgrade the design and systems of a space vehicle.
1. Launch at 9.07 p.m. of Moscow time on April 12, 1961. MISSION PROGRAM:
2. One orbit flight around the Earth and landing at the beginning of the second orbit on the Soviet territory.
3. During the flight the cosmonaut is to do the following:
- communicate to and receive messages from the ground;
- fill in the flight book and record his impressions by the tape recorder;
- monitor onboard systems;
- observe out of the window if thinks necessary;
- have a meal and drink;
- monitor himself.
FLIGHT PROPERTIES |
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- perigee height – 181 km;
- apogee height – 327 km;
- orbital inclination – 64.95î;
- orbital period – 89.34 min.
The mission lasted 108 minutes.
Starting from the deo-orbit burn firing at 10.25 a.m. up to landing the vehicle flew 8 000 km.
The flight duration at the descent path was about 30 minutes.