1961 in spaceflight
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 The Vostok 1 spacecraft, aboard which Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth on 12 April 1961 | |
| Orbital launches | |
|---|---|
| First | 31 January |
| Last | 22 December |
| Total | 50 |
| Successes | 28 |
| Failures | 20 |
| Partial failures | 2 |
| Catalogued | 36 |
| National firsts | |
| Spaceflight |  Italy |
| Space traveller |  Soviet Union United States |
| Rockets | |
| Maiden flights | Atlas LV-3A Agena-B Kosmos-2I 63S1 Saturn I (suborbital test) |
| Retirements | Atlas LV-3A Agena-A Juno II |
| Crewed flights | |
| Orbital | 2 |
| Suborbital | 2 |
| Total travellers | 4 |
Overview
Human spaceflight
The first crewed spaceflight mission was Vostok 1 ("East 1"), carrying the 27-year-old Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, on 12 April 1961. The spacecraft completed one orbit around the globe, lasting about 1 hour and 48 minutes.[1]
On 5 May 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space with his Freedom 7 spacecraft travelling on a suborbital trajectory. Unlike Vostok 1, the mission featured the first manual controlling of the spacecraft and the presence of the pilot within it during landing, the latter making it the first "completed" human spaceflight by formalistic interpretation of past Fédération Aéronautique Internationale definitions.[1][2][3]
Deep Space Rendezvous
| Date (GMT) | Spacecraft | Event | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 May | Venera 1 | First flyby of Venus | Spacecraft was already non-functional as communication had been lost en route, closest approach: 100,000 kilometres (62,000 mi) |
Notable creations of orbital debris
| Date/Time (UTC) | Source object | Event type | Pieces tracked | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 June[4] | Thor-Able upper stage of Transit 4A navigation satellite | Rocket explosion | 294[4] | First explosion of a rocket stage in orbit creating hundreds of debris pieces |
Orbital launch summary
By country
|
| |||||
| Orbital launch attempts by country in 1961 | ||||||
| Country | Launches | Successes | Failures | Partial failures |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soviet Union |
9 | 5 | 4 | 0 | |
| United States |
41 | 23 | 16 | 2 |
By rocket
| Rocket | Country | Launches | Successes | Failures | Partial failures | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas LV-3A Agena-A | United States |
1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Retired |
| Atlas LV-3A Agena-B | United States |
7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | Maiden flight |
| Atlas LV-3B | United States |
3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | First orbital launch |
| RM-90 Blue Scout II | United States |
1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | First orbital launch |
| Juno II | United States |
3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Retired |
| Kosmos-2I 63S1 | Soviet Union |
2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | Maiden flight |
| Molniya 8K78 | Soviet Union |
2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| Scout X-1 | United States |
3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | |
| Thor DM-21 Ablestar | United States |
3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | |
| Thor DM-21 Agena-B | United States |
17 | 11 | 6 | 0 | |
| Thor DM-19 Delta | United States |
3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | |
| Vostok-K 8K72K | Soviet Union |
5 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
By orbit
| Orbital regime | Launches | Achieved | Not Achieved | Accidentally Achieved | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low Earth | 41 | 28 | 13 | 3 | |
| Medium Earth | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| High Earth | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | Including Highly elliptical orbits |
| Heliocentric | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
References
Generic references:
- Bergin, Chris. "NASASpaceFlight.com".
- Clark, Stephen. "Spaceflight Now".
- Kelso, T.S. "Satellite Catalog (SATCAT)". CelesTrak.
- Krebs, Gunter. "Chronology of Space Launches".
- Kyle, Ed. "Space Launch Report". Archived from the original on 5 October 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
- McDowell, Jonathan. "Jonathan's Space Report".
- Pietrobon, Steven. "Steven Pietrobon's Space Archive".
- Wade, Mark. "Encyclopedia Astronautica".
- Webb, Brian. "Southwest Space Archive".
- Zak, Anatoly. "Russian Space Web".
- "ISS Calendar". Spaceflight 101.
- "NSSDCA Master Catalog". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
- "Space Calendar". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- "Space Information Center". JAXA.
- "Хроника освоения космоса" [Chronicle of space exploration]. CosmoWorld (in Russian).
Footnotes
- ^ a b "Famous milestones in space". MSN. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ Furniss, Tim (2007). Praxis manned spaceflight log, 1961-2006. New York: Springer. ISBN 0387341757.
- ^ ("FAI Astronautic Records Commission – Sporting Code Section 8" (PDF). Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 May 2006. Retrieved 9 April 2006.)
- ^ a b Orbital Debris: A Chronology (PDF). NASA JSC. January 1999. p. 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 September 2000. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
Two hours after separating from the U.S. Transit 4-A satellite, its Able Star upper stage becomes the first known artificial object to break up unintentionally in space. The cause of the explosion is unknown. The event produces at least 294 trackable pieces, more than tripling the number of known satellites of Earth.