Per Aspera Ad Astra - International Cosmonautics Day

12:45, April 12, 2023

On April 12, 1961 the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin marked the age of human exploration of space

On April 12, Russia celebrates Cosmonautics Day. 62 years ago the first manned space flight was made by the USSR. 27-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth for 1 hour and 48 minutes aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.

In 2011, the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight to commemorate this milestone for humanity.

CIS countries widely celebrate this day in honor of the late Yuri Gagarin - the symbol of heroism and self-sacrifice. His figure generated a truly global appeal and helped change the paradigm of the bipolar standoff between the USA and the USSR, resulting in the deepening of space cooperation for decades to come with joint US-Soviet and US-Russian programs such as Soyuz-Apollo and the MIR International Space Station.   

The Ural Federal University also has its own special approach to space exploration. For almost 50 years the university has been engaged in astronomical observations at the Kourovka Astronomical Observatory. The observatory, built in 1965, became the easternmost in Europe and the only one on the longitude from Kazan to Irkutsk. The name of the scientific leader of the observatory, Klavdia Barkhatova, was given to the small planet number 5781 by the decision of the International Astronomical Union.

In the 1970s, particles of lunar soil delivered by the Soviet Automated Interplanetary Station on the Moon and the American Apollo spacecraft were studied at UPI's Department of Physical Engineering. Physicists of the past decades and the present are developing innovative ideas on aeronautics, space rocket engines, new advanced materials. 

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office. 
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