CCCP

This astronaut crossed the Kármán Line (100 km), the internationally accepted boundary of space.

Crossed Kármán Line

This astronaut is the first man from Germany to go to space.

First Man from Germany

In 1978, Sigmund Jähn became the first German to travel to space. Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn was born on February 13, 1937, in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, Saxony, Germany. After completing his early education, he trained and worked as a book printer before joining the East German Air Force in 1955, where he rose through the ranks and pursued advanced training in flight tactics and combat aviation. He later attended the Yuri Gagarin Air Force Academy in Monino, earning a degree in military science in 1970 and working in pilot education and flight safety. In 1976, Jähn was selected for cosmonaut training under the Soviet Interkosmos program. On August 26th, 1978, he launched aboard Soyuz 31 with Soviet cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky and traveled to the Salyut 6 space station. During the nearly 8-day mission, he conducted scientific experiments in materials science, Earth observation, biology, medicine, and occupational psychology, and returned to Earth aboard Soyuz 29. Following the mission, Jähn received national honors including Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of the GDR, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in geophysics in 1983.Sigmund Jähn passed away on September 21st, 2019, at the age of 82.

Soyuz 31

This was a spacecraft swap and visitation mission to the Salyut 6 long duration crew to provide them a new reentry Soyuz spacecraft. The flight marked the first time a German citizen reached space.

Soyuz is a human-carrying capsule built and operated by Russia, capable of transporting up to three people to the Space Station at a time. It has been upgraded numerous times since its first use in the 1960s for the Soviet lunar program and was the only crewed vehicle for the Station from 2011 to 2020.

Soyuz

Sigmund Jähn

Germany

Vostok 5

Vostok 5 was a joint mission with Vostok 6. During launch the upper stage of the rocket malfunctioned and placed Vostok 5 into a slightly lower but safe orbit. Lasting nearly 5 days, this mission stands to this day as the record for the longest solo human spaceflight. The flight was supposed to last 8 days, but an expansion of Earth's atmosphere from solar flare activity caused the orbit to decay quicker than previous missions and the flight was ended early. 

Vostok was the first spacecraft capable of carrying humans into space. Officially known as Vostok 3KA, the single-person vehicle did not have landing equipment and all Soviets who flew on it had to eject at 7 km and parachute to the ground. The program completed six human flights and proved that people could live in space for several days.

Vostok

Soyuz 22

This was a free-flying Earth science mission that used the backup Soyuz from the Soyuz-Apollo Test Program. The eight-day mission saw two people achieve an unusually high orbital inclination for human missions. Most historians believe the mission's primary goal was to observe NATO Teamhawk exercises in Norway. Officially, the mission's objective was to photograph geographic features to help improve maps, agriculture, and other science pursuits in the Soviet Union.

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