List of crewed spacecraft
Space stations are listed beneath each appropriate section, dates of operation reflect when the first and last crews visited, not when they were launched and deorbited.
On 15 October 2003, Yang Liwei was carried into space by Shenzhou 5 becoming China's first Taikonaut.
Since Jun 2021, Shenzhou has been used as the vehicle to send crews to China's new modular Tiangong space station and back.
United States four-person (initially seven) Earth orbital spacecraft designed by SpaceX to transport astronauts to the International Space Station under the NASA Commercial Crew Contract (CCDev).
This was the first time an American spacecraft had sent astronauts to orbit since the final Space Shuttle flight in July 2011.
United States five-person (initially seven) Earth orbital spacecraft designed to transport astronauts to the International Space Station under the NASA Commercial Crew Program.
[13] On 12 April 1961 Vostok 1 carried the first human into space, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
[15] United States single-person Earth orbital spacecraft 6 flights (including 2 sub-orbital).
On 21 July 1969, Neil Armstrong, the Commander of Apollo 11, and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.
[26] United States privately-developed single pilot, air-launched sub-orbital spaceplane; three flights above the Kármán line occurred in 2004.
[34] On 13 December 2018, SpaceShipTwo flew to an altitude of 82.7 km, which is recognized as space by the FAA, NASA, and the USAF (although not the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale).
On 11 July 2021 a fourth test flight was made above 80 km with six crew aboard, including the company owner Richard Branson.
A spacecraft capable of lunar missions with a crew of four, planned to be used as part of NASA's Artemis program.
Consisting of two components – a Crew Module (CM) manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and a European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space – the spacecraft are designed to support crewed exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
Orion is equipped with solar power, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and can support a crew of six in low Earth orbit and a crew of four in lunar orbit, up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked.
The first mission on that flew a fully configured Orion spacecraft and service module was Artemis I.
This flight, however, was not a crewed mission and served the purpose of testing the systems of the spacecraft in the environment it was designed for.
The following crewed Artemis III flight is planned for 2025 and will be a lunar landing mission.
Planned to be a fully reusable interplanetary spacecraft capable of carrying 100 passengers or cargo.
Primarily designed for Mars missions it is to be capable of landing on all rocky planets or moons in the Solar System except Venus.
[41] For Earth launches Starship will need a two-stage configuration with the addition of a powerful first stage booster called Super-Heavy.
Starship will require refuelling in Earth orbit to enable it to reach other Solar System destinations.
A custom crewed lunar version of Starship—Starship HLS—was selected in 2021 from three companies that developed design proposals for NASA's Human Landing System for NASA's Artemis program, with a view to land one uncrewed mission plus one crewed mission on the Moon no earlier than 2025.
[44][45] SpaceX plans at least six variants of Starship, two of them intended to carry crew: Cargo flights, crewed flights (except HLS), a fuel depot,[46] a tanker version, expendable starships, and HLS.
[48][49] A new Chinese crewed lunar lander called Lanyue is also currently under-development by the China Academy of Space Technology.
