Manned Spacecraft

Manned spacecraft are vehicles that can go into space and which are manned and controlled by a human crew. Unlike satellites, space probes and other types of unmanned spacecraft these spacecraft need a crew on board to pilot and maintain them.

Russia was the first country to successfully put a manned spacecraft into space in 1961 when the Vostok 1 orbited the earth with the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on board. Later that year the USA also achieved a manned spaceflight but did not manage a manned orbit until a year later. In 1969 manned spacecraft missions probably reached their peak when the manned Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon.

Up until the mid 2000s the only other significant country that was trying out manned space missions was China. In 2004 the first commercial company - Scaled Composites - won a prize to achieve the first commercial space flight with its space ship SpaceShipOne.

Nowadays the primary space programs relevant here are the USA’s Space Shuttle program, Russia’s Soyuz program and China’s Shenzhou program. Human beings are also present on the International Space Station (the ISS) which is in constant low orbit of the earth. The crew here will work on this space station for a period of a few months at a time.