Vostok 4

Vostok 4 was a manned space flight of soviet Wostokprogramms. Together with Vostok 3, the first double flight of manned space travel was undertaken. The cosmonaut Pavel Popovich remained nearly three days in orbit.

Crew

• Pavel Romanovich Popovich ( first flight )

Backup crew

• Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov

Support team

• Boris Valentinovich Wolynow

Preparation

With the flight of Vostok 4 there should be two manned spaceships are for the first time simultaneously in space. The planning and preparation was carried out in parallel for Vostok 3 and Vostok 4.

As a pilot Pavel Popovich was selected, spare man was Vladimir Komarov.

History of the flight

Vostok 4 was launched on August 12, 1962 at 11:02 Moscow time clock from the Baikonur launch site, and reached after a few minutes the orbit with 159 km perigee and 211 km apogee at an inclination of 65 degrees. This train was almost identical to that of Vostok 3 with Andrian Nikolayev on board, who was barely 24 hours earlier started. That was the first time that two astronauts were staying in space simultaneously.

Due to the highest precision when starting the removal was to Vostok 3 after reaching the orbit temporarily only 6 km, but enlarged to the end of the mission to 2800 km. Popovich and Nikolayev were during the flight in direct radio contact with each other. By a defect in the life support system in the cabin temperature dropped to 10 ° C.

Vostok 4 landed after almost three days in space on August 15, 1962 at 09.59 Moscow time clock near Karaganda in Kazakhstan today. As usual with the Wostokflügen Popovich used the ejection seat and landed on your own parachute. Vostok 3 had landed only a few minutes earlier and had thus setting a new record for the duration human space flight.

Importance

The group flight of Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 was hailed as a great achievement of Soviet space exploration. Although now it is known that the ships themselves could not be controlled, it is to be regarded as a great power to perform two starts within 24 hours. The transmission of voice and telemetry to two spaceships was also a special performance, finally, there was at that time no communication satellites, and the Soviet Union possessed, unlike the U.S. does not have a worldwide network of ground stations.

The return capsule is on display in the " NPO Zvezda Museum " in Moscow, but was modified so that it now represents the Voskhod -2 spaceship.