1961-03-25 USSR Korabl-Sputnik 5 (Zvezdochka)

Korabl-Sputnik 5 (or Sputnik 10) was launched on March 25, 1961, as part of the Vostok programme. It was the last test flight of the Vostok spacecraft design prior the first crewed flight, Vostok 1. It carried the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Zvezdochka ("Starlet" or "Little star"), television cameras and scientific apparatus.

Zvezdochka space flight launch cover postmarked at Minsk on March 25, 1961.
Korabl-Sputnik 5 was successfully placed into low Earth orbit and the spacecraft completed a single orbit as planned, and then reentered the atmosphere over the Soviet Union; the total flight time was approximately that of other single-orbit missions, so about 105 minutes. During the descent, the mannequin was ejected from the spacecraft in a successful test of its ejection seat, and descended separately under its own parachute, as it had done on the previous mission, Korabl-Sputnik 4. It landed at approximately 07:40 UTC, northeast of Izhevsk, near the Chaykovsky, Perm Krai.

Zvezdochka first day cover postmarked at Moscow on June 8, 1961.
Photo: Zvezdochka, or "Little Star", second from the right.
(Reference from Korabl-Sputnik 5)