The ultimate goal of the Space Age was to see a man in a rocket, but a barrage of new technologies paved the way. Russia’s pioneering space sector, led by Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, followed the success of Sputnik 1 by sending new sophisticated spacecraft into orbit and beyond to other planets.
Korolev’s teams developed the technologies that could work many millions of miles from Earth, surviving both the violence of the rocket launch and the hostile environment of space. Animals were sent into orbit to test the systems needed to meet the ultimate challenge – manned space flight.