This mission marked the second human spaceflight. Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and landing 70 km southeast of Engels (5 - 10 km north of Krasny Kut).

Unlike to Yuri Gagarin with Vostok 1 German Titov took over with manual control of the spacecraft, but only for a while. Looking through the porthole of the capsule, he made a video movie 10 minutes long. German Titov was able to sleep a few hours during the spaceflight, although he went through some inconveniencies such as an unknown space sickness and problems with a malfunctioning heater.

A camera aboard the spacecraft transmitted smiling pictures of German Titov to the ground as he passed over Soviet territory on the fifth orbit. German Titov settled down to sleep during the seventh orbit; he awoke over eight hours later, 37 minutes after the scheduled end of his sleep period. Sleep did not relieve German Titov's serious discomfort; he still felt very ill after awaking. After 12 orbits German Titov suddenly began to recover, and became "completely functional and fully fit".

The reentry module failed to separate smoothly from its service module, but after several connecting pieces burned down during reentry, the capsule recovered a stable attitude. As planned, German Titov left the capsule with a catapult seat.

Even today is German Titov the ever-youngest human in space during his spaceflight.