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. Additionally, 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 Soyuz MS-25 on 23 March 2024, there have been 383 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 fourteen 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 | Scaled Composites (2004) Virgin Galactic (2018–present) | SpaceX | Blue Origin | CMSA | ||||||||||||||
Decades | Program | Dates [lower-alpha 1] | No. [lower-alpha 2] [lower-alpha 3] | Program [lower-alpha 4] | Dates | No. [lower-alpha 5] | Program | Dates | No. [lower-alpha 6] | Program | Dates | No. | 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 | 83 | ||||||||||||||||
2001–2010 | SpaceShipOne | 2004 | 3 | Shenzhou | 2003–present | 12 | 62 | |||||||||||||
2011–2020 | SpaceShipTwo | 2018–present | 11 | Crew Dragon | 2020–present | 13 | 47 | |||||||||||||
2021–2030 | New Shepard | 2021–present | 6 | 38 | ||||||||||||||||
Subtotals by entity | 159 | 179 | 14 | 13 | 6 | 12 | Total | 383 |
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.
Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA includes spacewalks and lunar or planetary surface exploration. In a stand-up EVA (SEVA), an astronaut stands through an open hatch but does not fully leave the spacecraft. EVAs have been conducted by the Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, Canada, the European Space Agency and China.
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.
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station is an artificial satellite. Stations must have docking ports to allow other spacecraft to dock to transfer crew and supplies. The purpose of maintaining an orbital outpost varies depending on the program. Space stations have most often been launched for scientific purposes, but military launches have also occurred.
Spaceflight is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in orbit around Earth, but also includes space probes for flights beyond Earth orbit. Such spaceflight operate either by telerobotic or autonomous control. The more complex human spaceflight has been pursued soon after the first orbital satellites and has reached the Moon and permanent human presence in space around Earth, particularly with the use of space stations. Human spaceflight programs include the Soyuz, Shenzhou, the past Apollo Moon landing and the Space Shuttle programs. Other current spaceflight are conducted to the International Space Station and to China's Tiangong 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 on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Between the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle and the 2020 demo flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon, the Soyuz served as the only means to ferry crew to or from the International Space Station, for which it remains heavily used. Although China did launch crewed Shenzhou flights during this time, none of them docked with the ISS.
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.
Expedition 59 was the 59th Expedition to the International Space Station. It started with the arrival of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft carrying Aleksey Ovchinin, Nick Hague and Christina Koch, joining Oleg Kononenko, David Saint-Jacques and Anne McClain who transferred from Expedition 58. The expedition formally began on March 15, 2019. Ovchinin and Hague were originally meant to fly to the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-10, but returned to Earth minutes after takeoff due to a contingency abort. The expedition formally ended with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft carrying Kononenko, Saint-Jacques and McClain on 24 June 2019; Ovchinin, Hague and Koch transferred to Expedition 60.
Expedition 60 was the 60th Expedition to the International Space Station, which began on 24 June 2019 with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. The expedition was commanded by Aleksey Ovchinin, who transferred from Expedition 59 together with American flight engineers Nick Hague and Christina Koch. They were joined by Aleksandr Skvortsov, Luca Parmitano and Andrew Morgan, who arrived on Soyuz MS-13 on 20 July 2019. The expedition ended on 3 October 2019, when Soyuz MS-12 undocked from the station and Koch, Skvortsov, Parmitano and Morgan transferred to Expedition 61.
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.