On this day in space: April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes 1st human in space

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On April 12, 1961, a human went to space for the first time! Yuri Gagarin was the first Soviet cosmonaut and the first person to orbit the Earth.

On April 12, 1961, a human went to space for the first time! Yuri Gagarin was the first Soviet cosmonaut and the first person to orbit the Earth. This was the Soviet Union's next big move in the "space race" after it launched the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. His mission was called Vostok 1, and it involved both a Vostok rocket and a Vostok space capsule.

Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut became the first human to fly into space on the Soviet Union's Vostok 1 mission. (Image credit: Getty)

Gagarin lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and reached an altitude of about 200 miles. He orbited the Earth one time before his reentry module separated and fell to Earth. Gagarin ejected himself from the spacecraft and safely parachuted down to Earth. Both he and his spacecraft touched down some 1,700 miles west of the planned landing site.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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