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More Details for 1960-12-22

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Unable to reach orbital velocity, the Vostok prototype separated while the third stage was still firing. While the ejection seat failed to operate, the capsule did make a hard landing in severe winter conditons in Siberia. It was recovered after some time, and the dogs Kometa and Shutka were alive. As a result of this flight the ejection seat was developed with a heat shield designed to protect the pilot in the event of a launch vehicle failure up to shut down of the first stage.

The State Commission chaired by Keldysh set the launch of Vostok s/n 4 for 22 December with the dogs Zhemchuzhina (Pearl) and Zhulka (Rogue) aboard and authorised rollout of the booster. The commission insisted that Kamanin depart for Kuibyshev to organize the search for the spacecraft after its touchdown there.

Kamanin and the recovery forces at Kuybyshev hear nothing as the planned landing time of 12:15 comes and goes. Finally the word comes that the booster failed to reach orbit.

Kamanin arrives back in Moscow at 19:30. But then there is news that VVS direction-finding arrays at Tashkent, Moscow, and Krasnodar have picked up the recovery beacom of the Vostok s/n 4 capsule and localised it to the Lower Tungus River in Siberia. Lt General Kutasin orders focused efforts to recover the capsule. Although long-range VVS stations continue to pick up the Vostok s/n 4 recovery beacons, searches by two Il-14s, Li-2's, and An-2's fail to locate the capsule. On 24 December at 10:00 an Li-2 sights the capsule visually, 70 km south of Tura. A recovery party lands by helicopter near the capsule and reports that the dogs are still alive!

On 31 December Kamanin receives a report of the Vostok capsule recovery. The service module did not seperate from the spherical reentry capsule as designed, but remained connected by a wire bundle, that only burned away during re-entry. Wires in the bundle were soldered together, resulting in the ejection seat (with the dog capsule in it) firing at the same time as the hatch was ejected (rather than with a 2.5 second delay). The seat and capsule were seriously dented upon hitting the hatch and remained inside the capsule. Nevertheless the dogs were fine, and able to feed unaided in Moscow on 26 December. Despite Korolev's urging, there has been no public announcement of the Vostok flight. The Communist Party does not even wish to admit to failures that ended with a success story - recovery of the dogs aboard.