Short note on the 50th anniver­sary of first human spaceflight

World marks the 50th anniversary on April 12, 2011 since the first manned flight into space made by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. April 12, 1961 was the Day when the first man entered into space. This is the date of very beginnings of the space flight. The world was astonished and happy.

This was the greatest achievement and first landmark for the journey of space mission. Yuri Gagarin spent a 108 minutes in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. Vostok 1 spacecraft blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome and the trip once around the Earth at 17,500 mph took less than an hour and a half.

He completed first orbit of the earth. Fie became the hero of the former Soviet Union. After four months of Vostok mission, Russian sent another cosmonaut, Gherman Titov. Fie spent more than 25 hours into space and completed 17 orbits of the earth.

Just one month after Vostok mission, President of United States of America John F. Kennedy declared that the United States of America would send a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. And this was the beginning of space race.

In July 1969, USA set another landmark in history of mankind. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the Moon.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an agency of United State government has achieved and established remarkable space programs, aeronautics, and aerospace research.

The first woman on board a space craft was Valentina Tereshkova who orbited earth on Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk when he left the Voskhod 2 on March 8, 1965 while Svetlana Savitskaya became* the first woman to do so on July 25, 1984.

International Spaceflight Day

The United Nations marked the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight in outer space by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin with a special session of the General Assembly. Gagarin became the first human being to travel into space on Apr 12, 1961 when he orbited the Earth on the Vostok-1 spacecraft in a flight lasting 108 minutes. Gagarin is also known as ‘the Columbus of the Cosmos’.

The UN General Assembly declared April 12 the International Spaceflight Day, which it said will be marked annually at the international level to commemorate the start of mankind’s space era and to reiterate the contribution of science and technology to achieving the objectives of steady development, raising the affluence of nations, and ensuring their willingness to maintain peace in outer space.

Mankind has made a great step forward in exploring the outer space since the day of Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight.

People have mastered long orbital missions and have learned how to launch various vehicles and probes to nearby and distant enough planets and comets. Now the scientists are not only dreaming of manned flights to the Mars, they have started preparing for them in practical terms.

Over the past fifty years, a club of space powers that have launched manned or unmanned vehicles into orbit has been formed, and yet the biggest number of breakthroughs in this sphere is still linked to a country that was named the USSR in Yuri Gagarin’s time and is named the Russian Federation now.

The ‘manned lunar race’ was the only sphere in the global space competition that the USSR lost after the death of the legendary Soviet Chief Space Designer, Sergei Korolyov, who died in 1966. Soviet cosmonauts never stepped on the surface of the Moon as a result.

Yet the Soviet-era unmanned missions of space probes to the Moon, the Mars and the Venus still keep Russia in the ranks of leaders of research of the Solar system planets.

In spite of the failures and insufficient financing of the 1990’s and the first decade of this century, Russia remains a leading power in space exploration. Russia has retained the key role in the International Space Station project.

Also, all the Russian cosmonauts and astronauts from different countries will be taken into orbit only by the Russian Soyuz spaceships after the U.S. winds up the thirty-years-long program of shuttle flights. Recently, the countries participating in the ISS project agreed to extend the station’s service life through to 2020. Since 1993, the U.S. and Russia have worked together on a number of other space flight projects.

Bearing in mind the future exploration of the Universe, Russia is starting construction of the Vostochny Space Center in 2011. It will be located in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East The emergence Of the new space launching facility in that part of the country will enable Russia to launch the vehicles of different types, including th6 ones for interplanetary expeditions, from its own territory.

At present, all the manned missions are launched only from the Baikonur Space Center located in central Kazakhstan.

According to the current plans, the first space start at Vostochny is to take place in 2015 and the first manned space mission will supposedly lift off from there in 2018. Yuri Gagarin’s flight symbolized a huge leap and a breakthrough in the scientific, technological and even moral aspect that this country made then.

UNOOSA, which works to promote international cooperation in the use of outer space to achieve development goals for the benefit of humankind, will commemorate another important anniversary this year – the 50th anniversary of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

Tasked with developing a legal framework for the conduct of activities in outer space and also facilitating the use of space-based technology and its applications for developed and developing nations alike, the Committee met for the first time on 27 November 1961, the same year as Mr. Gagarin’s flight.

In the last five decades, the Committee has developed five treaties and five principles governing the use of outer space. It has also helped States develop their indigenous capabilities to use space technology for sustainable development.

Space Research in India

Throughout the world, countries are participating and contributing for the space missions. India also has made remarkable achievement in space research and quest for the moon. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) controls and manages space mission for the country.

Rakesh Sharma of India, a former Indian Air Force test pilot, and a cosmonaut who flew into space aboard Russian Soyuz T-11 on 3 April 1984, as part of an Intercoms Research Team who became the first Indian to travel in space.

Chandrayaan-1 is the India’s first unmanned mission to the Moon. Chandrayaan 1, spacecraft carried payloads to the moon for moon exploration. Other countries also participated in this moon mission by contributing in payloads. Chandrayaan -1 has made significant discovery of water on the moon. In Chandrayaan-2, ISRO will send moon rover on moon surface. The rover would move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks. Thus, April 12, 1961 was the day of the beginning of the journey to the outer space for mankind.