gagarin.zil

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin * March 9, 1934, Gzhatsk – † March 27, 1968, near the village of Novosiolovo) was a Soviet cosmonaut, the first man to take off into space. He started his space flight on April 12, 1961 on the ship Vostok 1 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. He flew around the Earth and landed after 106 minutes.

After returning from flight into space, he became a hero of the Soviet Union and a celebrated world celebrity. Meetings of people in the Soviet Union and around the world represented a large part of the following years of his life. Despite the burden of public duties, he studied at the Zhukovsky Academy from 1961, and at the same time headed the astronaut division. He did not make the next space flight, he was only Vladimir Komarov’s deputy for Soyuz 1 in April 1967. In March 1968 he completed his studies at the academy and returned to flying on airplanes, but on March 27, 1968, he died in a training flight.