Gagarin's return to Earth. Artwork showing Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) parachuting back to Earth following his historic spaceflight as the first human in space. Gagarin (upper right) launched on 12 April 1961 in the Vostok 1 spacecraft and circled the Earth once in a flight that lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes. During re-entry, the descent module (lower left) separated from the rest of the spacecraft. Gagarin ejected 7 kilometres up. Both cosmonaut and descent module deployed parachutes, descending safely to the ground in the Saratov region of Russia.