Vostok 2 - Definition and Overview

Vostok 2

Mission Insignia
Mission Statistics
Mission Name:	Vostok 2
Call Sign:	Орёл (Oryol - "Eagle")
Number of Crew Members:	1
Launch:	August 6, 1961 05:00 UTC Baikonur LC1
Landing:	August 7, 1961 07:18 UTC 51° N, 46° E, near Krasny Kut
Duration:	1 day, 1 hour, 18 minutes
Number of Orbits:	17.5

Vostok 2 was a Soviet space mission which carried cosmonaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day in order to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body.

Unlike Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 Titov took manual control of the spacecraft for a short while.

The flight was an almost complete success, marred only by a bout of space sickness, a malfunctioning heater that allowed the inside temperature to drop to 6.1°C (43°F), and a troublesome re-entry when the re-entry module failed to separate cleanly from its service module.

The re-entry capsule was unfortunately destroyed during development of the Voskhod spacecraft.

As of 2003, Titov remains the youngest person to reach space. He was a month short of 26 years old at launch.

Crew

• Gherman Titov

Backup

• Andrian G. Nikolayev

Mission Parameters

• Mass: 4730 kg
• Perigee: 172 km
• Apogee: 221 km
• Inclination: 64.8°
• Period: 88.4 minutes