1961 in spaceflight
 The Vostok 1 spacecraft, aboard which Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth on 12 April 1961 | |
| Orbital launches | |
|---|---|
| First | 31 January |
| Last | 22 December |
| Total | 50 |
| Successes | 28 |
| Failures | 20 |
| Partial failures | 2 |
| Catalogued | 36 |
| National firsts | |
| Spaceflight |  Italy |
| Space traveller |  Soviet Union United States |
| Rockets | |
| Maiden flights | Atlas LV-3A Agena-B RM-90 Blue Scout II Kosmos-2I 63S1 Saturn I (suborbital test) |
| Retirements | Atlas LV-3A Agena-A RM-90 Blue Scout II Juno II Scout X-1 |
| Crewed flights | |
| Orbital | 2 |
| Suborbital | 2 |
| Total travellers | 4 |
Orbital and Suborbital launches
[edit]Deep Space Rendezvous
[edit]| Date (GMT) | Spacecraft | Event | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 May | Venera 1 | First flyby of Venus | Spacecraft was already non-functional as communication had been lost en route, closest approach: 100,000 kilometres (62,000 mi)[1] |
Notable creations of orbital debris
[edit]| Date/Time (UTC) | Source object | Event type | Pieces tracked | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 June[2] | Thor-Able upper stage of Transit 4A navigation satellite | Rocket explosion | 294[2] | First explosion of a rocket stage in orbit creating hundreds of debris pieces |
Orbital launch statistics
[edit]| Country | Launches | Successes | Failures | Partial failures | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soviet Union |
9 | 5 | 4 | 0 | |
| United States |
41 | 23 | 16 | 2 | |
| World | 50 | 28 | 20 | 2 | |
By rocket
[edit]| Rocket | Country | Family | Launches | Successes | Failures | Partial failures | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas LV-3A Agena-A | United States | Atlas | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Retired |
| Atlas LV-3A Agena-B | United States | Atlas | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | Maiden flight |
| Atlas LV-3B | United States | Atlas | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | First orbital launch |
| RM-90 Blue Scout II | United States | Scout | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Only orbital launch |
| Juno II | United States | Jupiter | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Retired |
| Kosmos-2I 63S1 | Soviet Union | Kosmos | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | Maiden flight |
| Molniya 8K78 | Soviet Union | R-7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| Scout X-1 | United States | Scout | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Retired |
| Thor DM-21 Ablestar | United States | Thor | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | |
| Thor DM-21 Agena-B | United States | Thor | 17 | 11 | 6 | 0 | |
| Thor DM-19 Delta | United States | Thor | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | |
| Vostok-K 8K72K | Soviet Union | R-7 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
By family
[edit]| Family | Country | Launches | Successes | Failures | Partial failures | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas | United States | 11 | 5 | 5 | 1 | |
| Jupiter | United States | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Retired |
| Kosmos (rocket) | Soviet Union | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | Maiden flight |
| R-7 8K78 | Soviet Union | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | |
| Scout | United States | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | |
| Thor | United States | 23 | 16 | 6 | 1 |
By orbit
[edit]| Orbital regime | Launches | Achieved | Not Achieved | Accidentally Achieved | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low Earth | 41 | 28 | 13 | 3 | |
| Medium Earth | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| High Earth | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | Including Highly elliptical orbits |
| Heliocentric | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
References
[edit]- Bergin, Chris. "NASASpaceFlight.com".
- Clark, Stephen. "Spaceflight Now".
- Kelso, T.S. "Satellite Catalog (SATCAT)". CelesTrak.
- Krebs, Gunter. "Chronology of Space Launches".
- Kyle, Ed. "Space Launch Report". Archived from the original on 5 October 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
- McDowell, Jonathan. "GCAT Orbital Launch Log".
- Pietrobon, Steven. "Steven Pietrobon's Space Archive".
- Wade, Mark. "Encyclopedia Astronautica".
- Webb, Brian. "Southwest Space Archive".
- Zak, Anatoly. "Russian Space Web".
- "ISS Calendar". Spaceflight 101.
- "NSSDCA Master Catalog". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
- "Хроника освоения космоса" [Chronicle of space exploration]. CosmoWorld (in Russian).
- "Rocket Launch Manifest". Next Spaceflight.
- "Space Launch Plans". Novosti Kosmonavtiki.
- "Space Satellite Tracking". N2YO.
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ "Venera 1". NSSDCA Master Catalog. NASA. 1961-003A. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
- 1 2 Orbital Debris: A Chronology (PDF). NASA JSC. January 1999. p. 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 September 2000. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
Two hours after separating from the U.S. Transit 4-A satellite, its Able Star upper stage becomes the first known artificial object to break up unintentionally in space. The cause of the explosion is unknown. The event produces at least 294 trackable pieces, more than tripling the number of known satellites of Earth.