Gagarin's orbit in Vostok 1. Orbital flightpath (red, on a map of the Earth) of the Vostok 1 spacecraft that carried Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) around the globe as the first human in space. Gagarin's historic flight took place on 12 April 1961 and lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes. His call sign (upper left) was KEDR, and he launched (upper right) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, landing in the Saratov region of Russia. The times given here are in Western European Time, with local launch time being 09:07 in the morning. The landing point is west of the launch point because of the eastwards rotation of the Earth.