Russia to fete memory of Yuri Gagarin

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia will fete the memory of first man in space Yuri Gagarin on Tuesday with a 50-gun salute even as space officials, cosmonauts and astronauts from all over the world join celebrations in the Russian capital.

In a break with tradition in a country which unlike the U.S. space agency NASA never gives names to its spacecraft, Moscow named a Soyuz spaceship after Gagarin which last week brought a new team to the International Space Station (ISS).

President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree ordering a 50-salvo fireworks salute in Moscow to mark the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's trail-blazing 79-minute flight around the Earth on April 12, 1961. April 12 is marked in Russia every year as Day of Cosmonautics, but from this year on it will be celebrated throughout the world. The U.N. General Assembly last Thursday adopted a Russia-moved resolution declaring April 12 “International Day of Human Space Flight.”