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This Wikipedia article (in german) has some information about the heat shield of Vostok 1.

The heat shield was made from asbestos, its thickness was increased from 3 cm to up to 18 cm. The weight of the heat shield was 837 kg, the reentry module had 2.460 kg. Vostok spacecraft

Did they use pure asbestos only, or a mix of asbestos fibers with a phenolic resin? If it was pure asbestos, did it ablate at all?

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The heat protection material on the Vostok spacecraft is a resin-drenched asbestos fabric. https://habr.com/ru/post/230445/ enter image description here

Heat protection was mainly asbestos fabric, impregnated with bakelite resin. The maximum thickness of thermal protection in the frontal part was 110 mm, and the minimum - 40 mm in the rear. http://epizodsspace.airbase.ru/bibl/k-r/1991/4-5vostok.html

enter image description here

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