12 aprel yuri gagarin biography

What names come to your mind when you think of famous astronauts? Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin or Jim Lovell might come to mind.

12 aprel yuri gagarin biography for kids

But none of these brave men was the first person to travel to outer space to become the first official astronaut in the planet. In fact, the one to get that honor was a Russian cosmonaut.

Yuri Gagarin became the first astronaut when he journeyed into outer space aboard the Vostok 1 capsule on April 12th, 1961.

The ship completed one lap around our planet, also making him the first human to orbit Earth.

What is an astronaut?

To make sure our answer to the question of the first astronaut is correct, let’s take a look at the official definition of an astronaut.

The Fédération aéronautique internationale (Aeronautic International Federation) defines an astronaut as the person trained for human spaceflight who have participated in flights above 100 kilometers (62 miles).

The United States