Vostok Spacecraft (cupronickel)

The 50 tenge coin "Vostok Spacecraft" is part of the space-themed collector issues of the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Vostok coin is dedicated to the spacecraft in which man first travelled into space. Vostok-1 launched from Baikonur on April 12, 1961, carrying pilot Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin on board. The flight lasted 108 minutes: the spacecraft completed one orbit around the Earth, after which the descent module entered the atmosphere. At an altitude of about seven kilometers, the cosmonaut ejected and landed by parachute near the village of Smelovka in the Saratov Oblast, while the spherical capsule landed separately.

The Vostok spacecraft was developed in the design bureau of Sergei Korolev. It consisted of a spherical descent module about 2.3 meters in diameter and an instrument compartment with a retro-propulsion system. The flight was fully automatic: control was in the hands of ground services, and the cosmonaut was given a sealed code in case a manual mode was necessary. The TASS report on the first human spaceflight spread around the world in a matter of minutes and became a turning point of the 20th century. The 2008 commemorative issue serves as a reminder that the launch pad for this event was the Kazakhstan steppe.

Obverse

The official side of the coin bears the state designations. Inscriptions are arranged along the circumference: "ҚАЗАҚСТАН РЕСПУБЛИКАСЫ" in the Kazakh language at the top, and "REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN" in English at the bottom. To the right of the center is the face value: the number "50" and below it the word "ТЕҢГЕ" — fifty tenge. The central field continues the space theme: a vertical line divides it into two parts; on one side, a starry sky with orbits and stars is shown, and on the other, a full-length silhouette of a person against the background of a spiral galaxy, with small dots scattered in the upper part. This composition is uniform for all coins in the series, which allows one to immediately recognize the issue and distinguish it from ordinary circulation coins.

The uniformity of the design on the official side emphasizes that we are looking at parts of a common thematic project: the design on the artistic side changes, while the state portion remains recognizable. The strict arrangement of inscriptions along the arc and the clear relief of the numbers ensure the legibility of the face value, and the mint mark indicates the place of minting. The contrast between the smooth field and the relief elements preserves the expressiveness of the composition under any lighting. Such a side serves simultaneously as a document of the coin and as part of its design, which is why it is just as important in a collection as the artistic side.

Reverse

The artistic side depicts the Vostok spacecraft in flight over the surface of a celestial body. The hull is shown with antennas and portholes, a rocky relief with craters is visible at the bottom, and in the upper part of the field shines the round disc of the Moon, rendered with gilding, making it a prominent accent of the composition. The background is filled with dots of stars.

Inscriptions run along the circumference: "ҒАРЫШ КЕМЕСІ • SPACESHIP" at the top and "ВОСТОК • VOSTOK • 2008" at the bottom. Below the spacecraft is the number "1961" — the year of the first human flight. The combination of the Kazakh, Russian, and English languages demonstrates the international significance of the event, and the detailed elaboration of the spacecraft's features allows one to examine the shape of the apparatus just as it was known from photographs of museum exhibits.