Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), flew into orbit aboard the Soviet spacecraft Vostok I on 12 April 1961, becoming the first man in space. He orbited the Earth once before returning for a safe landing in the Soviet Union roughly 90 minutes later. His capsule had been controlled from the ground.

The 1961 flight made him an international hero. While on board, he received word that he had been promoted to the rank of major. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin and made a deputy of the Soviet parliament, the Supreme Soviet.

Gagarin was preceded into space by a Soviet dog, Laika.

Gagarin applied for the six-week cosmonaut screening process in 1960 with just 230 hours of flying experience. He and 19 others were selected to become cosmonauts. Of these 20 men, 12 eventually completed space flights. Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Gherman Titov, front-runners in their class, were both contenders for the Vostok 1 flight.

Gagarin was chosen to fly aboard Vostok 1 just four days before the launch date. There was at least one delay in the countdown, due to a faulty valve. At 9:07 am, Vostok 1, using the radio name CEDAR, lifted off for its 108-minute flight.

Gagarin was exposed to about six times the normal force of gravity on the earth during the launch phase and about eight times the normal force of gravity during the re-entry.

Vostok 1 landed in a field near Saratov, observed only by cows and a few peasants. Information that emerged in the late 1980s about the Soviet space program suggests that Gagarin actually bailed out of Vostok 1 at an altitude of about 6 km (about 4 mi) and descended under a parachute separately from the capsule.

After his famous flight he remained in the cosmonaut corps. He died at the age of 34 on a routine jet proficiency flight in March 1968. He had a wife, Valentina Gagarin, and two daughters, Elena and Gallina. On April 12, 2001, Gagarin's daughter Elena, was appointed general director of the Moscow Kremlin museum-reservation.