World Celebrates International Day of Human Space Flight on Tuesday

KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 (Bernama) -- The International Day of Human Space Flight is celebrated Tuesday to mark the first human space flight, carried out by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, which opened the way for space exploration. The United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution on April 7, 2011, declared April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight to celebrate each year at the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realisation of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes. The Russian Embassy in Malaysia, in a statement made available to Bernama, said Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth when his spacecraft Vostok blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to travel around the globe once before successfully landing in Russia’s Saratov Region. "His flight lasted 108 minutes. At the moment of blast-off, Gagarin dropped a remark that instantly went down in history: "Off we go!" The space flight earned him the title of 'The Hero of the Soviet Union'," the statement read. According to the embassy, at the end of April 1961, Yuri Gagarin began a "world tour of peace." In three years, he visited about 30 countries, including Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Finland, Britain, Poland, Cuba, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, India, Egypt, Austria, Japan, France, Mexico, East Germany, Sweden and Norway. The world’s first cosmonaut died in an air crash while performing a test flight on a MiG-15UTI training fighter jet together with instructor Vladimir Seryogin on March 27, 1968. -- BERNAMA