Return to the Atmosphere

The braking engine fired automatically over Africa and Vostok 1 began its descent back to Earth. Shortly afterwards, the instrument module failed to separate from the descent capsule as planned.

The capsule carrying Gagarin and the attached instrument module remained joined by a bundle of cables and tumbled wildly for several minutes until the connection burned through in the heat of the atmosphere and the modules separated. The descent capsule — spherical and with no active guidance of its own — continued its steep but stable fall toward Earth.

As it entered the atmosphere, the capsule's surface heated to thousands of degrees. Deceleration loads reached as much as 8–9 g.