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Yuri Gagarin Facts & Worksheets

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Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.

See the fact file below for more information on astronaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin or alternatively download our comprehensive worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

  • Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934 in the village of Klushino in Smolensk, Russia. He was the third of four children from parents who worked on a collective farm.
  • At age 16, he became an apprentice as a foundry man in a metal works shop but then transferred to a technical school in Saratov. There, he started joining a flying club, the “AeroClub”, and took the skies for the first time. In the year 1955, after completing his technical schooling, he entered flight training at the Orenburg Military Pilot’s School.
  • He graduated from the Soviet Air Force cadet school in 1957 and served as a fighter pilot. He married Valentina Goryacheva in the same year, after gaining his pilot wings in a MiG-15.
  • He became a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force in the same year and was promoted to senior lieutenant in 1959.
  • In the year 1960, he was chosen along with 19 other pilots, to be one of Soviet Union’s first human beings to be launched in space. He was further selected for an elite training group known as the ‘Sochi Six’, who later on became the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme.
  • The cosmonaut group were subjected to experiments designed to test their physical and psychological endurance. Out of this group, Gagarin and Gherman Titov were chosen to be the first members to launch into Space .
  • At 9:07 on the morning of April 12, 1961, Gagarin Vostok 1 spacecraft lifted off from Baikonur cosmodrome as he uttered a surprisingly informal term “Poyekhali!” (let’s go). The flight was a single orbit around the Earth but unfortunately had a failure in landing, causing Gagarin to get ejected first before landing, parachuting him safely near the Volga River.
  • In 1962, he served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and later on returned to the Star City training facility to spend some years on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in June 1962 and then to colonel in November 1963.
  • On March 27, 1968, Gagarin took off with MiG-15UTI fighter with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin for a routine training flight which ended up in a tragic plane crash near the town of Kirzhach.

“Modest; embarrasses when his humour gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.”

Yuri Gagarin Worksheets

This bundle contains 11 ready-to-use Yuri Gagarin worksheets that are perfect for students who want to learn more about astronaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin who was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.

Download includes the following worksheets:

  • Yuri Gagarin Facts
  • Fact Sheet
  • First Man in Space
  • Hero of the Soviet Union
  • Beauty of the Earth I
  • Beauty of the Earth II
  • Vostok 1 Spacecraft
  • Earth’s Gravitational Pull
  • Gagarin as the “First Man in Space”
  • The Space Race
  • Space Travel

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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