This is a list of all crewed spaceflights throughout history. Beginning in 1961 with the flight of Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1, crewed spaceflight occurs when a human crew flies a spacecraft into outer space. Human spaceflight is distinguished from spaceflight generally, which entails both crewed and uncrewed spacecraft.
There are two definitions of spaceflight. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), an international record-keeping body, defines the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space at 100 kilometres (62 mi) above sea level. This boundary is known as the Kármán line. The United States awards astronaut wings to qualified personnel who pilot a spaceflight above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km).
As of the launch of SpaceX Crew-9 on 28 September 2024, there have been 391 human spaceflight launches. Two missions did not cross either the Kármán line or the U.S. definition of space and therefore do not qualify as spaceflights. These were the fatal STS-51-L (Challenger disaster), and the non-fatal aborted Soyuz mission T-10a. Two aborted missions did cross either the Kármán line or the U.S. definition of space. These were the non-fatal aborted Soyuz mission MS-10 which did not reach the Kármán line but did pass the 80 km (50 mi) line. The other was the non-fatal Soyuz mission, 18a which crossed the Kármán line. Four missions successfully achieved human spaceflight, yet ended as fatal failures as their crews died during the return. These were Soyuz 1, X-15 flight 191, Soyuz 11, and STS-107 (Columbia disaster). Twenty two flights in total reached an apogee beyond 50 miles (80 km), but failed to go beyond 62 miles (100 km), so therefore do not qualify as spaceflights under the FAI definition.
Since 1961, three countries (China, Russia, and the United States) and one former country (Soviet Union) have conducted human spaceflight using seventeen different spacecraft series, or: "programs", "projects".
Entity | Soviet Union (1961–1991) / Russia (1992–present) | United States | China | Subtotals by decade | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Agency | Soviet space program Roscosmos | NASA | Private space corporations operating sub-orbital flights out of the United States | Private space corporations operating orbital flights out of the United States | CMSA | ||||||||||||||
Decades | Program | Dates [a] | No. [b] [c] | Program [d] | Dates | No. [e] | Company | Program | Dates | No. [f] | Company | Program | Dates | No. | Program | Dates | No. | ||
1961–1970 | Vostok | 1961–1963 | 6 | Mercury | 1961–1963 | 6 | 52 | ||||||||||||
Voskhod | 1964–1965 | 2 | X-15 | 1962–1968 | 13 | ||||||||||||||
Soyuz | 1967–1991 | 66 | Gemini | 1965–1966 | 10 | ||||||||||||||
Apollo | 1968–1972 | 11 | |||||||||||||||||
1971–1980 | 38 | ||||||||||||||||||
Skylab | 1973–1974 | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
Apollo–Soyuz | 1975 | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
1981–1990 | Space Shuttle | 1981–2011 | 135 | 63 | |||||||||||||||
1991–2000 | Soyuz | 1992–present | 86 | 84 | |||||||||||||||
2001–2010 | Scaled Composites | SpaceShipOne | 2004 | 3 | Shenzhou | 2003–present | 13 | 61 | |||||||||||
2011–2020 | Virgin Galactic | SpaceShipTwo | 2018–2024 | 12 | SpaceX | Crew Dragon (Commercial Crew) | 2020–present | 15 | 48 | ||||||||||
2021–2030 | Blue Origin | New Shepard | 2021–present | 8 | Boeing | Boeing Starliner (Commercial Crew) | 2024–present | 1 | 46 | ||||||||||
Subtotals by entity | 160 | 179 | 23 | 16 | 13 | Total | 391 |
The Salyut series, Skylab, Mir, ISS, and Tiangong series space stations, with which many of these flights docked in orbit, are not listed separately here. See the detailed lists (links below) for information.
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts, cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers.
The Salyut programme was the first space station programme, undertaken by the Soviet Union. It involved a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed military reconnaissance space stations over a period of 15 years, from 1971 to 1986. Two other Salyut launches failed. In one respect, Salyut had the space-race task of carrying out long-term research into the problems of living in space and a variety of astronomical, biological and Earth-resources experiments, and on the other hand, the USSR used this civilian programme as a cover for the highly secretive military Almaz stations, which flew under the Salyut designation. Salyut 1, the first station in the program, became the world's first crewed space station.
Soyuz is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau. The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft and was originally built as part of the Soviet crewed lunar programs. It is launched atop the similarly named Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word spaceport, and even more so cosmodrome, has traditionally been used for sites capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for purely sub-orbital flights are sometimes called spaceports, as in recent years new and proposed sites for suborbital human flights have been frequently referred to or named "spaceports". Space stations and proposed future bases on the Moon are sometimes called spaceports, in particular if intended as a base for further journeys.
Soyuz 7K-T No.39 was an unsuccessful launch of a crewed Soyuz spacecraft by the Soviet Union in 1975. The mission was expected to dock with the orbiting Salyut 4 space station, but due to a failure of the Soyuz launch vehicle the crew failed to make orbit. The crew consisted of commander Vasily Lazarev, and flight engineer Oleg Makarov, a civilian. Although the mission was aborted and did not accomplish its objective, the craft exceeded common space boundaries and therefore is recognized as a sub-orbital spaceflight, which the crew survived. The crew, who initially feared they had landed in China, were successfully recovered.
The Skylab Rescue Mission was an unflown rescue mission, planned as a contingency in the event of astronauts being stranded aboard the American Skylab space station. If flown, it would have used a modified Apollo Command Module that could be launched with a crew of two and return a crew of five.
Skylab 4 was the third crewed Skylab mission and placed the third and final crew aboard the first American space station.
United States astronaut badges are the various badges of the United States which are awarded to military and civilian personnel of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the various child departments of the Department of Defense, or a private space-faring entity, who have performed a spaceflight. The military versions are among the least-awarded qualification badges of the United States armed forces.
Maspalomas Station is an INTA-operated, ESTRACK radio antenna ground station for communication with spacecraft located at the southern area of Gran Canaria island, on the INTA campus. It is situated on the Montaña Blanca hill and is visible from the coastal resort of Meloneras, close to Maspalomas. It was originally established in the 1960s to support NASA's nascent human spaceflight program.
VP-03 was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity which took place on 13 December 2018, piloted by Mark P. Stucky and co-piloted by Frederick W. "CJ" Sturckow.