But the triumph didn’t last for long this time either. After the success of Vostok 1, the USSR again took the lead in the Space Race. Although the Soviets initially stated that he landed with the Vostok, the famous cosmonaut parachuted from his capsule when reaching a safe altitude. Gagarin orbited the Earth for nearly two hours. On April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome it was carrying Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) who became the first human in history to travel into space. Vostok 1 was the greatest Soviet triumph in the Space Race. artificial satellite, Explorer 1 was also the first in the series of over 90 Explorers, the last of which - TESS - was launched on April 18, 2018. Explorer 1 collected data for almost four months before exhausting its batteries, but it continued to orbit the Earth until 1970. satellite also provided invaluable information which, among other things, also proved to be of crucial importance for the discovery of the so-called Van Allen radiation belt. Besides establishing a balance in the Space Race, the first U.S. Launch of Explorer 1Īfter the launch of Sputnik 1 and 2, the United States stepped up in its efforts to launch its artificial satellite, and on January 31, 1958, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) successfully launched Explorer 1. Laika, the stray female dog that was selected for the mission, died a few hours after the launch of Sputnik 2, while the spacecraft itself continued to orbit the Earth for 162 days. This time, however, the spacecraft was carrying a living animal, a dog called Laika which became the first living being to orbit the Earth and provide critical biological data for the later manned spaceflights. On November 3, 1957, the USSR successfully launched the second spacecraft into the Earth’s orbit - Sputnik 2.
Less than a month after the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the Soviet space program achieved another major ‘victory’ in the Space Race. It orbited the Earth for three months before burning up while falling from the orbit into the Earth’s atmosphere on January 4, 1958. Besides striking a massive blow to the Soviet rival, Sputnik 1 also provided the scientists on Earth with valuable information regarding the Earth’s atmospheric density and ionosphere. The event thus effectively triggered what came to be known as the Space Race. But it also encouraged the United States to create NASA and take a more serious approach to the space program to catch up with the Soviet Union. A huge milestone concerning spacecraft technology, the event shocked the United States which was working on launching its artificial satellite. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite. and the USSR, however, the period of the Space Race was also marked by increased investments in research and development which led to significant advances in our understanding of the outer space. Marked by bitter competition between the U.S. In the mid-1950s, the rivalry between the Cold War superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - was taken into space, giving rise to a period known as the Space Race that lasted until the early 1970s.
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