 The first successful human spaceflight was "Vostok 1" ("East 1"), carrying 27-year-old Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961.The spacecraft completed one orbit around the globe, lasting about 1 hour and 48 minutes.Gagarin's flight resonated around the world; it was a demonstration of the advanced Soviet space program and it opened an entirely new era in space exploration