- News

'First Orbit' video recreates Yuri Gagarin's trip

12. 04. 11

'First Orbit' is an hour-and-a-half long video that recreates, in real-time, Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin's first 108-minute long orbit of Earth in 1961.

The video was produced to celebrate 50 years since Yuri Gagarin's legendary space mission. The video uses footage obtained by ESA astronauts onboard the International Space Station combined with archive film clips from Yuri's original flight, to provide as close a realistic representation of what Yuri Gagarin would have seen on his first journey as possible. The footage also weaves in historic voice recordings from Yuri himself, as well as an original musical score by composer Philip Sheppard.

The full video can be seen below:

There have been a large range of resources produced to celebrate Yuri's famous flight, today, 50 years on, a selection of these follows:

Gagarin and the space race, produced by The Guardian.

50 years of humans in space, website and videos produced by the European Space Agency.

Yuri's Night, an annual worldwide party to celebrate Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space, the website also includes further educational resources.


Yuri Gagarin

News archive Previous stories