On March 9, 1961, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 9. This mission was a test flight of the Vostok spacecraft, which would later carry the first cosmonauts into space. Inside the spacecraft was a ...

The launch itself was at a knives’ edge when the first test flight of Vostok-K rocket failed. Its capsule never reached the orbit and landed back into Earth with two dogs on board, who survived ...

The rocket also served as a basis for the three-stage Vostok Rocket that inaugurated the era of manned flights on April 12, 1961, when Yuri Gagarin started off into orbit on the Vostok 1 spacecraft.