Soviet commemorative stamp of the flight of Zvezdochka.
March 26, 2021
3KA Vostok spacecraft
60 years ago, on March 25, 1961, a three-stage Vostok launch vehicle with the second flight prototype of the 3KA Vostok spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The automatic mission of the apparatus with the dog Zvezdochka on board became the final check of the spacecraft before the first manned flight into space.
The development of a domestic manned spacecraft began in the Moscow Region OKB-1 (now the SP Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia) under the leadership of Chief Designer Sergei Korolev in accordance with the government decree of May 22, 1959. The preparatory stage of the program provided for the implementation during 1960 of a series of experimental flights of automatic spacecraft 1K for testing onboard equipment and controls, checking the operability of the life support system and studying the effect of space factors on living organisms. Based on the results of successful flight testing of the spacecraft and the launch vehicle, OKB-1 specialists began preparations for the first ever manned space flight.
Test dummy
For the safety of the cosmonaut, Sergei Korolev made a decision to carry out a manned launch only after two successive successful launches of spacecraft with biological objects. At the beginning of March 1961, the satellite-ship 3KA No. 1 with the dog Chernushka made a successful flight. The second test mission 3KA No. 2 with a similar flight program took place on March 25, 1961. This time in the pressurized cabin of the spacecraft there was an experimental dog Zvezdochka, mobilized from the squad of four-legged cosmonauts of the Institute of Space Medicine (modern Institute of Biomedical Problems). Also in the descent vehicle was installed an ejection seat with an anthropometric simulator of the cosmonaut MA-1 "Ivan Ivanovich" dressed in a spacesuit. As in the previous flight, containers with mice, guinea pigs and other biological objects were kept inside the dummy to study the effects of space radiation.
According to telemetry and trajectory radio measurements, spacecraft 3KA No. 2 passed the active phase of launching and completed a single-orbit flight in full accordance with the assigned program. After the calculated information from the orbit, "Ivan Ivanovich" ejected from the descent vehicle and performed a parachute landing, and the descent vehicle itself with Zvezdochka landed safely on the territory of the Perm region, 50 km northeast of the city of Sarapul. The astronaut dog, in excellent physical shape, was promptly found and evacuated the next day by the arrived search and rescue group. Based on the results of the flight of product 3KA No. 2, the reliability of the entire complex of on-board systems of the spacecraft, necessary for the safe performance of the upcoming manned space flight, was re-confirmed.
ROSCOSMOS Press Release: https://www.roscosmos.ru/30474/
Images, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS/CCCP Space Program/Wikipedia/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.
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