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Soyuz (Russian: Союз, IPA: [sɐˈjus], lit. 'Union') is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia ).
The Soviet space program (Russian: Космическая программа СССР, romanized: Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Apr 16, 2021 · The Soviet Union did not have many of the same technological advances enjoyed by Nasa – but that didn’t stop them leaping ahead of the Americans into space. Here’s how.
Luna 1, also known as Mechta ( Russian: Мечта [mʲɪt͡ɕˈta], lit.: Dream ), E-1 No.4 and First Lunar Rover, [4] was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon, the first spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, and the first to be placed in heliocentric orbit.
- First artificial earth satellite: Sputnik. Soviet technician working on Sputnik 1, 1957. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first manmade object to orbit the earth, on October 4, 1957, to little fanfare.
- First animals to successfully orbit the earth: Belka and Strelka. The two Russian dogs, Belka (left) and Strelka, photographed before they were sent into orbit round the Earth in a Russian satellite.
- First on the moon: Luna 2 probe. Luna 2 Soviet moon probe, 1959. Long before Neil Armstrong walked on the lunar surface, the Soviets reached the moon. The country’s Luna program deployed a number of probes between 1959 and 1976 to significantly expand earthlings’ understanding of our satellite.
- First man in space: Yuri Gagarin. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, who completed a circuit of the earth in the spaceship satellite Vostok in 1961.
6 days ago · Soyuz, any of several versions of Soviet /Russian crewed spacecraft launched since 1967 and the longest-serving crewed-spacecraft design in use.
Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space on 12 April 1961. Gagarin launched from what is now Kazakhstan in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. He orbited Earth once and landed near the Russian city of Saratov. Gagarin’s flight pushed the Soviet Union ahead in the Space Race with the United States.
