Корабль «Спутник-5»: Последний испытательный полёт перед Гагариным

Soviet spacecraft

Korabl Sputnik 5
Korabl Sputnik 5 (Корабль Спутник 5 meaning Ship Satellite 5) or Vostok 3KA No.2, also known as Sputnik 10 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft which was launched in 1961, as part of the Vostok programme. It was the last test flight of the Vostok spacecraft design prior the first crewed flight, Vostok 1. It carried the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Zvezdochka ("Starlet", or "Little star" Prior to Korabl Sputnik 4, the two previous missions in the Vostok programme were both launched in December 1960, and both ended in failure. Only days before the launch of Korabl Sputnik 5, the cosmonaut team, which consisted of 20 men, experienced its first fatality. Cosmonaut candidate Valentin Bondarenko was killed in a fire during a training exercise in an oxygen rich isolation chamber.

Korabl Sputnik 5 was launched at 05:54:00 UTC on 25 March 1961, atop a Vostok K carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The landing occurred during a snowstorm, which caused delays in locating exactly where touchdown occurred. The recovery team noted that the spacecraft was still hot to touch, 24 hours after landing in five feet of snow. That crewed mission, known as Vostok 1, would occur on about April 12, 1961, carrying the world's first human space traveller, Yuri Gagarin. The spacecraft Gagarin used was a nearly identical model, called Vostok 3KA 3. A major difference between the 3KA 2 and 3KA 3 spacecraft was that the 3KA 2 version, like all uncrewed Vostok spacecraft, was equipped with a self destruct system, in the event it reentered the atmosphere over foreign territory.

The re entry module of the spacecraft Vostok 3KA 2 was auctioned at Sotheby's on 12 April 2011, the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's spaceflight, Vostok 1. The spacecraft was expected to sell for USD 2–10 million,