knew you couldn't fit a choir in a Korabl-Sputnik satellite." Nonetheless, non-Russian speaking listeners who tuned in to the radio transmissions did initially and erroneously believe that there was a cosmonaut aboard. Alexei Leonov would later recall: "since no announcement of the flight had been released by our state news agency, TASS, rumors spread like wildfire that a crewed space flight had gone wrong and been covered up." Capsule recovery The landing occurred during a snowstorm, which caused delays in locating exactly where touchdown occurred. It was about 24 hours after landing when a recovery team arrived at the site. Local villagers assisted the team to the landing area, with the help of a horse-drawn sled. The recovery team noted that the spacecraft was still hot to touch, 24 hours after landing in five feet of snow. The nearby villages were suspicious of the recovery teams, believing that the mannequin was in fact a person who may have been badly injured. Legacy The success of Korabl-Sputnik 5 was the final step required to get approval for a crewed mission. That crewed mission, known as Vostok 1, would occur on about April 12, 1961, carrying the world's first human space traveller, Yuri Gagarin. The spacecraft Gagarin used was a nearly identical model, called Vostok 3KA-3. A major difference between the 3KA-2 and 3KA-3 spacecraft was that the 3KA-2 version, like all uncrewed Vostok spacecraft, was equipped with a self-destruct system, in the event it reentered the atmosphere over foreign territory. 2011 Auction The re-entry module of the spacecraft Vostok 3KA-2 was auctioned at Sotheby's on 12 April 2011, the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's spaceflight, Vostok 1. The spacecraft was expected to sell for USD 2–10 million, and was sold for US$2,882,500. 2020 COVID-19 Vaccine On August 11, 2020 the Russian government announced the world's first release of a vaccine against COVID-19, referring to the vaccine as "Sputnik V" (Gam-COVID-Vac) to reflect Russia's previous victories in the Space Race. See also Zond 5, another Soviet mission some mistakenly thought was crewed. Notes References SP-2000-4408. Part 1 (page 1-500), Part 2 (page 501-1011). Vostok program Spacecraft launched in 1961 1961 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft which reentered in 1961 March 1961 events