Space Capsule - History

History

Early space capsules were based on the designs of the late Maxime Faget and many Soviet engineers working under Sergei Korolev.

Before humans went into space, test orbital and suborbital flights of space capsules were made with monkeys, dogs and mice. These were to see what effects a flight in space would have on a living organism. In 1957, Russia sent into orbit the first animal (dog) in Sputnik 2 but without recovery of space capsule to Earth. This was followed by other animal missions of developed as manned Vostok spacecraft (first successful was Sputnik 5 in 1960), until Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made a first manned orbital flight of Earth in 108 minutes on April 12, 1961. The first American to orbit Earth was in February 1962 astronaut John Glenn in the Mercury capsule that previously was tested as unmanned and made manned suborbital missions (first of Alan Shepard on May 1961). Later, the Gemini capsule took two astronauts into space for longer periods of time. The Apollo capsule took three astronauts to the moon, and the Lunar Module took two of them to the surface. The Soviet Voskhod space capsule has taken up to three cosmonauts into orbit per mission.

Not all space capsule missions have been successful. Many people have lost their lives in space explorations. One of them, the Soyuz 11 capsule, lost the air inside of it before reentry during the descend module separation, and although safely landed, all three cosmonauts were dead due to depressurization and asphyxiation. Another, Apollo 1 was destroyed by cabin fire during launch simulation and all three astronauts died due to smoke inhalation and burns.

First unmanned space capsule (recovery satellite) was US Corona reconnaisanse satellite at 1959.