Vostok 1 lifted off from Baykonur Cosmodrome at 06:07 GMT on 12 April 1961, riding atop an R-7 based Vostok booster rocket. An orbit inclined 65° to the equator, with an 89 minute period, was achieved. Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gargarin, was chosen from three final candidates by Chief Designer Sergei P. Korolov (Second photo at right) just four days earlier. He was strapped into the single seat of the spacecraft, becoming the first man in space. His call sign was Kedr (Siberian Pine), and he made radio contact with a series of Soviet ground stations until heading out over the Pacific Ocean near Kamchatcka peninsula. Shortly thereafter his television signal was intercepted by a US ELINT (ELectronic INTelligence) station on the Aleutian Island of Shemya. Gagarin sailed across the pacific in darkness, mistakenly reporting his position as "Over America" at one point. He rounded the southern tip of South America minutes later, and returned to daylight.

Vostok 1 executed retrofire for return to Earth at 07:22 GMT. However, a secret kept for decades, was that after retro-fire his descent capsule failed to separate on time from the service module. It took 10 MINUTES for the attaching metal straps to burn through, rather that the planned 10 SECONDS. During this time, the outcome of the flight was seriously in doubt (Scroll to 4th entry down) as Gagarin's ship went into unconrolled spins and yaws. The reentry sphere finally separated from the service module, stabilizing just in the nick of time.

Another long kept secret about the flight is that Gagarin ejected from his capsule at approximately 4.4 miles (7 km) altitude, landing by parachute separately from his craft in the region of Saratov Russia at 07:55 GMT. Had this been known at the time, the acheivement may not have been credited as the first manned space flight. International recording bodies in that era required that the pilot reach the ground WITH his spacecraft. That seems a moot point today. Yuri Gagarin did successfully reach stable orbit, circle the Earth, and land safely.

One humerous note. When Gagarin landed in a farmers field, the locals took him for a foreign invader at first. He had to explain who he was before they would escort him to a telephone!

Vostok 1, the first manned space flight, lasted 1 hour 48 minutes and is one of the great milestones in human history. Russians are justifiably proud of this accomplishment.

Recently, I was watching a PBS TV documentary called NOVA, about Russian Science. A film clip of the landmark launch of Vostok 1 was included. I noticed that there was something odd in the sky near the lifting rocket. This short bit of video was captured into my PC for closer analysis.

The object seemed to be above the smoke plume from Gagarin's booster. The anomaly appeared to approach the Vostok rocket, and make a very sudden sharp turn, following the spacecraft upward on its trajectory.

A visual presentation has been prepared for you to illustrate this strange phenomenon. How about we take a look at it now, OK?

Lastly, we have colors reversed to present the anomaly as black against a lighter background.

An embossed version was prepared, but it offered nothing in the way of improvement, so it was not included.

The original video provides even more detail than could be reproduced here. If you have the chance, see the film from the launch of Vostok 1 for yourself. This is an historic film, and should be available from many sources.

So, in this writer's opinion, we have an unexplained object teasing with the rocket containing the first man to fly into outer space. Why? I don't know. What is it exactly? I don't know. But it is THERE, and its not anything conventional.

Vostok Project Patch

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At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

© 2006 Jeff Challender