The Vostok-K rocket launched Vostok 1, carrying Yuri Gagarin on the first human spaceflight.
The launch took place on 12 April 1961 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soviet Union. Vostok-K was a three-stage version of the R-7 rocket family, developed to place the Vostok spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Its successful launch began the era of crewed spaceflight.
Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth during the mission, which lasted 108 minutes from launch to landing. The spacecraft was operated largely automatically because Soviet engineers had concerns about human performance in weightlessness and had limited experience with crewed missions.
Vostok-K is sometimes confused with Vostok-L, an earlier launch vehicle that failed during a 1960 test flight. It is also distinct from later Soyuz rockets, which evolved from the same broad R-7 design lineage but were not used for Gagarin's historic flight.