Vostok 3KA-2 Capsule (final pre-Gagarin test flight)

The dress rehearsal

The Vostok program, conceived by Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the Soviet space program, first made history in 1960 when the dogs Belka and Strelka became the first animals to survive a trip into space. The craft's spherical cabin, made of aluminum alloy, was then adapted to carry a person. Two missions in December 1960 failed. A Vostok of the final 3KA design flew for the first time on March 9, 1961, as Korabl-Sputnik 4, and succeeded.

Korolev still wanted one more flight before risking a cosmonaut's life. Vostok 3KA No. 2, flown as Korabl-Sputnik 5, launched at 05:54 UTC on March 25, 1961, on a Vostok-K rocket from Site 1/5 at Baikonur. It made a single orbit and came back down over the Soviet Union. During descent the mannequin was ejected and parachuted to the ground separately, testing the ejection seat that a cosmonaut would use.

The spacecraft carried Ivan Ivanovich, a life-size dummy in a cosmonaut suit, and a dog named Zvezdochka, 'Little Star.' Mice, rats, guinea pigs, frogs and plants went along, with television cameras and scientific instruments. A major difference between this craft and the one Gagarin would ride was a self-destruct system, fitted to every uncrewed Vostok in case it came down over foreign territory.

A dummy named John Doe

Ivan Ivanovich is the Russian equivalent of 'John Doe.' The mannequin had eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes and a mouth, and in his spacesuit he looked so much like a dead man that engineers placed a sign reading 'MAKET,' Russian for 'dummy,' under his visor so that whoever found him would not mistake him for a corpse.

He also had a voice. To test the radio link without fooling listeners into thinking a man was aboard, the Soviets loaded a tape with deliberate giveaways: a choir singing and a man reading a recipe for borscht. It did not entirely work. Some foreign listeners who did not speak Russian believed a cosmonaut was aboard, and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov later recalled rumors that a crewed flight had gone wrong and been covered up.

The capsule landed northeast of Izhevsk in a snowstorm, and it took a recovery team about 24 hours to reach it, guided by local villagers with a horse-drawn sled. The crew found the spacecraft still warm in five feet of snow. Villagers worried that the figure that had come down by parachute was a badly injured man.

Three weeks to Gagarin

The flight went ahead under a shadow. On March 23, 1961, cosmonaut candidate Valentin Bondarenko died after a fire in an oxygen-rich chamber during training, the first death in the cosmonaut corps. News of it was suppressed, and his existence was not made public until 1986. Space historian Asif Siddiqi has written that it is not clear whether the other trainees were even told.

Korabl-Sputnik 5's success was the last step needed to approve a crewed mission. Spaceflight researcher James Oberg called Vostok 3KA-2 'the key in the door for Gagarin's flight.' On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin launched in the nearly identical Vostok 3KA-3, later known as Vostok 1, and completed one orbit in 108 minutes from launch to landing. That capsule is on display at the RKK Energia museum outside Moscow.

The United States answered within weeks. Alan Shepard flew a suborbital Mercury mission on May 5, 1961, and on May 25 President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to commit to landing a man on the Moon before the decade was out.

From a secret program to a Manhattan lobby

The capsule stayed classified until 1986. According to the 2011 sale catalog, as quoted by a visitor to the preview, its instrumentation and equipment were dismantled and destroyed in 1967. The seller, unnamed in the 2011 sale announcements, had bought it privately from Russia years earlier, and it was the only Vostok outside Russia.

It first came to auction in New York in March 1996 with an estimate of $800,000 to $1 million and failed to meet its reserve. Its owner, a dealer in historical documents, showed it widely in the United States: at the International Space Symposium in Washington in 2000 and in Colorado Springs in 2001, at Science Museum Oklahoma in 2004, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in 2007 and at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin in 2009. In 2000 it was trucked into Times Square and lifted by crane into a building lobby, and that December it was offered in a televised auction, where bidding again fell short of the reserve.

In 2011 it was offered again, in New York, as the only lot in its own sale, scheduled for April 12, the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight. The estimate was $2 million to $10 million. It sold for $2,882,500 including buyer's premium to Evgeny Yurchenko, chairman of the investment fund AS Popov, who said he would bring it home: 'I hope that Vostok will take its rightful place in one of the nation's museums devoted to the history of the formation of the Russian space program.' Because the U.S. State Department classes it as a space object, its export required special licenses.

Space historian Robert Pearlman said the price was believed to be the most ever paid at a public sale for a single space artifact, above the $1.6 million paid in 1996 for a later Soyuz capsule.

What survives

What sold in 2011 is the reentry sphere alone: an aluminum alloy ball about 2.3 meters (7.26 feet) in diameter, scorched on the outside from reentry. Reports of its size vary slightly; one described it as just over 7 feet, another as no more than 2.5 meters. Both original hatches, for operations and for the parachute, are missing, and so are all the internal fittings except the mannequin's seat. A visitor to the 2011 preview noted that the hatch had been bolted on with 30 numbered bolts tightened in a cross pattern, like lug nuts on a car wheel.

Its companions went their own ways. Ivan Ivanovich was sold at auction in 1993 for $189,500 to a foundation belonging to Ross Perot, was lent to the National Air and Space Museum from 1997, and returned to the Perot collection in 2017. Gagarin's own capsule remains in Russia.

The numbers

Launch

March 25, 1961, 05:54 UTC, Baikonur Site 1/5, Vostok-K rocket

Orbits

1

Perigee / apogee

164 km / 230 km

Inclination

64.9 degrees

Orbital period

88.42 minutes

Launch mass

4,695 kg

Flight time

About 1 hour 46 minutes per mission records; the 2011 sale described 115 minutes

Days before Gagarin

18

Timeline

1. 1960

   Belka and Strelka, flown by the Vostok program, become the first animals to survive a trip into space.

2. Dec 1960

   Two Vostok test missions fail.

3. Mar 9, 1961

   Korabl-Sputnik 4, the first 3KA flight, succeeds with Ivan Ivanovich and the dog Chernushka.

4. Mar 23, 1961

   Cosmonaut candidate Valentin Bondarenko dies after a training fire; the death is kept secret.

5. Mar 25, 1961

   Vostok 3KA-2 launches as Korabl-Sputnik 5, makes one orbit and lands near Izhevsk in a snowstorm.

6. Apr 12, 1961

   Yuri Gagarin flies Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1), the first human spaceflight.

7. 1967

   The capsule's instrumentation and equipment are dismantled and destroyed, per the 2011 catalog.

8. 1986

   The capsule is declassified.

9. 1993

   The Ivan Ivanovich mannequin sells at auction for $189,500.

10. Mar 1996

    Offered at auction in New York with an estimate of $800,000 to $1 million; unsold.

11. 2000

    Displayed at the International Space Symposium in Washington; lifted by crane into a Times Square lobby.

12. Dec 7, 2000

    Offered in a televised auction with a $5 million to $7.5 million estimate; bidding falls short of the reserve.

13. 2004

    Displayed at Science Museum Oklahoma.

14. 2007

    Displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

15. 2009

    Displayed at the LBJ Library and Museum in Austin.

16. Mar 2011

    Placed on public preview in New York ahead of a single-lot sale.

17. Apr 12, 2011

    Sold at auction in New York for $2,882,500 to Evgeny Yurchenko on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight.

The world in 1961

• Jan 20, 1961

  John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States.

• Jan 31, 1961

  The chimpanzee Ham rides Mercury-Redstone 2 into space.

• Apr 20, 1961

  Fidel Castro announces the defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

• May 5, 1961

  Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.

• May 25, 1961

  Kennedy asks Congress to commit to landing a man on the Moon within the decade.

• Jun 4, 1961

  Kennedy and Khrushchev meet at the Vienna summit.

• Aug 13, 1961

  Construction of the Berlin Wall begins.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Vostok 3KA-2 Capsule (final pre-Gagarin test flight) is number 31 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (24 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The test radio tape aboard included a choir and a borscht recipe so no one would think a man was in orbit; some listeners believed it anyway.
• Engineers put a sign reading 'MAKET,' Russian for 'dummy,' under Ivan Ivanovich's visor so finders would not think he was a corpse.
• The recovery team reached the capsule a day after landing and found it still warm in five feet of snow.
• Unlike Gagarin's ship, this capsule carried a self-destruct charge in case it came down outside the Soviet Union.
• Before it sold for nearly $2.9 million, the capsule had failed to sell twice: in 1996 against an estimate of under $1 million, and in a televised auction in 2000.
• In 2000 the capsule was trucked into Times Square and hoisted by crane into an office lobby.