Editing Vostok 1 (section)

==Background==
{{main|Vostok programme}}

The [[Space Race]] between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two [[Cold War]] superpowers, began just before the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial [[satellite]], [[Sputnik 1]], in 1957. Both countries wanted to develop spaceflight technology quickly, particularly by launching the first successful human spaceflight. The Soviet Union secretly pursued the [[Vostok programme]] in competition with the United States' [[Project Mercury]]. Vostok launched several precursor uncrewed missions between May 1960 and March 1961, to test and develop the [[Vostok (rocket family)|Vostok rocket family]] and [[Vostok (spacecraft)|space capsule]]. These missions had varied degrees of success, but the final two&mdash;[[Korabl-Sputnik 4]] and [[Korabl-Sputnik 5]]&mdash;were complete successes, allowing the first crewed flight.