Overview
Human spaceflight
The first crewed spaceflight mission was
Vostok 1
Vostok 1 (russian: link=no, Восток, ''East'' or '' Orient'' 1) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Apr ...
("East 1"), carrying the 27-year-old
Soviet cosmonaut,
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. Tr ...
, on 12 April 1961. The spacecraft completed one orbit around the globe, lasting about 1 hour and 48 minutes.
On 5 May 1961,
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
astronaut
Alan Shepard
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...
became the first
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
in space with his
Freedom 7
Mercury-Redstone 3, or ''Freedom 7'', was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first crewed flight of Project Mercury. The project had the ultimate objective of putting an astr ...
spacecraft travelling on a
suborbital trajectory. Unlike Vostok 1, the mission featured the first manual controlling of the spacecraft and the presence of the pilot within it during landing, the latter making it the first "completed" human spaceflight by formalistic interpretation of past
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
The (; FAI; en, World Air Sports Federation) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintai ...
definitions.
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Deep Space Rendezvous
Notable creations of orbital debris
Orbital launch summary
By country
By rocket
By orbit
References
Footnotes
{{Orbital launches in 1961
Spaceflight by year