List of human spaceflights, 1961–1970

Last updated December 16, 2023

This is a detailed list of human spaceflights from 1961 to 1970, spanning the Soviet Vostok and Voskhod programs, the start of the Soviet Soyuz program, the American Mercury and Gemini programs, and the first lunar landings of the American Apollo program.

Red indicates fatalities.
Green indicates sub-orbital spaceflight (including flights that failed to attain intended orbit).
Grey indicates flights to the Moon.
The United States defines spaceflight as any flight reaching an altitude of 50 miles, while the FAI definition requires an altitude of 100 kilometers. During the 1960s, 13 crewed flights of the U.S. North American X-15 rocket plane met the U.S. criteria, of which only two met the FAI's. This article's primary list includes only the latter two flights. A separate, secondary list gives the other eleven which flew between 50 miles and 100 kilometers.

#	Crew	Launch spacecraft	Habitation		Return spacecraft	Brief mission summary
1	Yuri Gagarin	12 April 1961 Vostok 1				First crewed spaceflight. Reached Low Earth Orbit (LEO), flew around the Earth one time.
2	Alan Shepard (1)	5 May 1961 Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7)				First American crewed spaceflight. Did not reach Earth orbit, maximum altitude: 187 km (116 miles). The mission was also the first "completed" human spaceflight per past FAI definitions, because unlike Soviet Vostok 1 mission, the crew landed while remaining inside the spacecraft.^[1]^[2]
3	Gus Grissom (1)	21 July 1961 Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7)				Second American crewed spaceflight. Did not reach Earth orbit, maximum altitude: 190 km (118.26 mi).
4	Gherman Titov	6 August 1961 Vostok 2		7 August 1961 Vostok 2		Day-long flight in LEO. Flew around the Earth 17 times. Brief manual control by pilot.
5	John Glenn (1)	20 February 1962 Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7)				First American crewed orbital flight. Flew around the Earth three times. It was also the first "completed" orbital human spaceflight per past FAI definitions, because unlike Soviet Vostok missions of that period, the crew landed while remaining inside the spacecraft.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]
6	Scott Carpenter	24 May 1962 Mercury-Atlas 7 (Aurora 7)				First manual retrofire. Earth photography and study of liquids in weightless conditions.
7	Andriyan Nikolayev (1)	11 August 1962 Vostok 3		15 August 1962 Vostok 3		First instance of two crewed spacecraft in orbit simultaneously.
8	Pavel Popovich (1)	12 August 1962 Vostok 4		15 August 1962 Vostok 4		First instance of two crewed spacecraft in orbit simultaneously.
9	Wally Schirra (1)	3 October 1962 Mercury-Atlas 8 (Sigma 7)				First flawless Mercury mission.
10	Gordon Cooper (1)	15 May 1963 Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7)		16 May 1963 Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7)		First live TV from U.S. astronaut.
11	Valery Bykovsky (1)	14 June 1963 Vostok 5		19 June 1963 Vostok 5		Longest solo spaceflight.
12	Valentina Tereshkova	16 June 1963 Vostok 6		19 June 1963 Vostok 6		First woman in space.
13	Joseph A. Walker	19 July 1963 Flight 90, X-15				First winged craft in space. Reached altitude of 106 km.
14	Joseph A. Walker	22 August 1963 Flight 91, X-15				Reached altitude of 108 km. Walker becomes first person to fly into space twice. X-15-3 (serial 56-6672) becomes first vehicle to fly into space twice.
15	Vladimir Komarov (1) Konstantin Feoktistov Boris Yegorov	12 October 1964 Voskhod 1		13 October 1964 Voskhod 1		First multiple person spaceflight. Biomedical research.
16	Alexei Leonov (1) Pavel Belyayev	18 March 1965 Voskhod 2		19 March 1965 Voskhod 2		First EVA.
17	Gus Grissom (2) John Young (1)	23 March 1965 Gemini 3				First to perform orbital maneuvers.
18	James McDivitt (1) Ed White	3 June 1965 Gemini 4		7 June 1965 Gemini 4		First American EVA.
19	Gordon Cooper (2) Pete Conrad (1)	21 August 1965 Gemini 5		29 August 1965 Gemini 5		First one week spaceflight. Cooper becomes the first person to orbit the Earth on two different missions.
20	Frank Borman (1) Jim Lovell (1)	4 December 1965 Gemini 7		18 December 1965 Gemini 7		First two-week spaceflight. First space rendezvous in history with Gemini 6A.
21	Wally Schirra (2) Thomas P. Stafford (1)	15 December 1965 Gemini 6A		16 December 1965 Gemini 6A		First space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.
22	Neil Armstrong (1) David Scott (1)	16 March 1966 Gemini 8		17 March 1966 Gemini 8		First docking in space in history with Agena Target Vehicle Planned EVA canceled due to early re-entry necessitated by stuck thruster.
23	Thomas P. Stafford (2) Eugene Cernan (1)	3 June 1966 Gemini 9A		6 June 1966 Gemini 9A		First backup crew to fly space mission.
24	John Young (2) Michael Collins (1)	18 July 1966 Gemini 10		21 July 1966 Gemini 10		First rendezvous with two different objects.
25	Pete Conrad (2) Richard F. Gordon Jr. (1)	12 September 1966 Gemini 11		15 September 1966 Gemini 11		Held altitude record prior to lunar missions (1374 km).
26	Jim Lovell (2) Buzz Aldrin (1)	11 November 1966 Gemini 12		15 November 1966 Gemini 12		First manual rendezvous. Miscellaneous scientific experiments.
27	Vladimir Komarov (2)	23 April 1967 Soyuz 1		24 April 1967 Soyuz 1		Crashed on re-entry. First human fatality during a spaceflight.
28	Wally Schirra (3) Donn F. Eisele Walter Cunningham	11 October 1968 Apollo 7		22 October 1968 Apollo 7		First three person U.S. crew. Launched over 20 months after Apollo 1 fatalities.
29	Georgy Beregovoy	26 October 1968 Soyuz 3		30 October 1968 Soyuz 3		Failed to dock with uncrewed Soyuz 2.
30	Frank Borman (2) Jim Lovell (3) William Anders	21 December 1968 Apollo 8		27 December 1968 Apollo 8		First crewed lunar orbit.
31	Vladimir Shatalov (1)	14 January 1969 Soyuz 4		17 January 1969 Soyuz 4		First crew transfer between space vehicles. First docking of two crewed spacecraft.
32	Aleksei Yeliseyev (1) Yevgeny Khrunov	15 January 1969 Soyuz 5		17 January 1969 Soyuz 4		First crew transfer between space vehicles. First docking of two crewed spacecraft.
32	Boris Volynov (1)	15 January 1969 Soyuz 5		18 January 1969 Soyuz 5
33	James McDivitt (2) David Scott (2) Rusty Schweickart	3 March 1969 Apollo 9		13 March 1969 Apollo 9		Tested Lunar Module in low Earth orbit.
34	Thomas P. Stafford (3) John Young (3) Eugene Cernan (2)	18 May 1969 Apollo 10		26 May 1969 Apollo 10		Tested Lunar Module in low lunar orbit.
35	Neil Armstrong (2) Michael Collins (2) Buzz Aldrin (2)	16 July 1969 Apollo 11	Moon		24 July 1969 Apollo 11	First lunar landing.
36	Georgy Shonin Valeri Kubasov (1)	11 October 1969 Soyuz 6		16 October 1969 Soyuz 6		First three-craft spaceflight.
37	Anatoly Filipchenko (1) Vladislav Volkov (1) Viktor Gorbatko (1)	12 October 1969 Soyuz 7		17 October 1969 Soyuz 7		First three-craft spaceflight.
38	Vladimir Shatalov (2) Aleksei Yeliseyev (2)	13 October 1969 Soyuz 8		18 October 1969 Soyuz 8		First three-craft spaceflight.
39	Pete Conrad (3) Richard F. Gordon Jr. (2) Alan Bean (1)	14 November 1969 Apollo 12	Moon		24 November 1969 Apollo 12	Second lunar landing. Precision landing near Surveyor 3.
40	Jim Lovell (4) Jack Swigert Fred Haise	11 April 1970 Apollo 13		17 April 1970 Apollo 13		Lunar landing aborted following explosion en route.
41	Andriyan Nikolayev (2) Vitaliy Sevastyanov (1)	1 June 1970 Soyuz 9		19 June 1970 Soyuz 9		Investigations into effects of prolonged spaceflight. Record duration mission for single spacecraft.

Flights between 50 miles and 100 kilometers

In addition to the above spaceflights, eleven flights of the North American X-15 reached a maximum altitude above 50 miles but below 100 kilometers, thus satisfying the U.S. definition of spaceflight but failing to surpass the Kármán line. Among the twelve X-15 pilots, only Neil Armstrong and Joe Engle would travel to space following their participation in the program. Eleven of the thirteen flights above 50 miles were made in the X-15-3, the program's third plane; only two were made in the X-15-1, its first.

In the below table, "spaceflight" and related phrases refer to the American convention.

#	Crew	Launch spacecraft	Brief mission summary
—	Robert M. White	17 July 1962 X-15 Flight 62	White's only spaceflight. First spaceflight of X-15 program.
—	Joseph A. Walker	17 January 1963 X-15 Flight 77	Walker's first spaceflight.
—	Robert A. Rushworth	27 June 1963 X-15 Flight 87	Rushworth's only spaceflight.
—	Joe Engle	29 June 1965 X-15 Flight 138	Engle's first spaceflight.
—	Joe Engle	10 August 1965 X-15 Flight 143	Engle's second spaceflight.
—	John B. McKay	18 September 1965 X-15 Flight 150	McKay's only spaceflight.
—	Joe Engle	14 October 1965 X-15 Flight 153	Engle's third and last spaceflight, and final flight with X-15 program. First spaceflight of the X-15-1.
—	William H. Dana	1 November 1966 X-15 Flight 174	Dana's first spaceflight.
—	William J. Knight	17 October 1967 X-15 Flight 190	Knight's only spaceflight. Last successful flight of the X-15-3.
—	Michael J. Adams	15 November 1967 X-15 Flight 191	Adams' only spaceflight. Fatal disaster, killing Adams and destroying the X-15-3.
—	William H. Dana	21 August 1968 X-15 Flight 197	Dana's second and last spaceflight. Third-to-last flight of X-15 program. Second and last spaceflight of the X-15-1.

Related Research Articles

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 Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and had its peak with the more particular Moon Race to land on the Moon between the US moonshot and Soviet moonshot programs. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security and became part of the symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic space probes to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon.

The Voskhod programme was the second Soviet human spaceflight project. Two one-day crewed missions were flown using the Voskhod spacecraft and rocket, one in 1964 and one in 1965, and two dogs flew on a 22-day mission in 1966.

Voskhod 1 was the seventh crewed Soviet space flight. Flown by cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov, and Boris Yegorov, it launched 12 October 1964, and returned on the 13th. Voskhod 1 was the first human spaceflight to carry more than one crewman into orbit, the first flight without the use of spacesuits, and the first to carry either an engineer or a physician into outer space. It also set a crewed spacecraft altitude record of 336 km (209 mi).

Human spaceflight programs have been conducted, started, or planned by multiple countries and companies. The age of crewed rocket flight was initiated by Fritz von Opel who piloted the world's first rocket-propelled flight on 30 September 1929. All space flights depend on rocket technology; von Opel was the co-designer and financier of the visionary project. Until the 21st century, human spaceflight programs were sponsored exclusively by governments, through either the military or civilian space agencies. With the launch of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of human spaceflight programs – commercial human spaceflight – arrived. By the end of 2022, three countries and one private company (SpaceX) had successfully launched humans to Earth orbit, and two private companies had launched humans on a suborbital trajectory.

A space rendezvous is a set of orbital maneuvers during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance. Rendezvous requires a precise match of the orbital velocities and position vectors of the two spacecraft, allowing them to remain at a constant distance through orbital station-keeping. Rendezvous may or may not be followed by docking or berthing, procedures which bring the spacecraft into physical contact and create a link between them.

A space capsule is a spacecraft designed to transport cargo, scientific experiments, and/or astronauts to and from space. Capsules are distinguished from other spacecraft by the ability to survive reentry and return a payload to the Earth's surface from orbit, and are distinguished from other types of recoverable spacecraft by their blunt shape, not having wings and often containing little fuel other than what is necessary for a safe return. Capsule-based crewed spacecraft such as Soyuz or Orion are often supported by a service or adapter module, and sometimes augmented with an extra module for extended space operations. Capsules make up the majority of crewed spacecraft designs, although one crewed spaceplane, the Space Shuttle, has flown in orbit.

A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule. It is used in the event of a critical emergency to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiring the abort of the launch, such as an impending explosion. The LES is typically controlled by a combination of automatic rocket failure detection, and a manual activation for the crew commander's use. The LES may be used while the launch vehicle is still on the launch pad, or during its ascent. Such systems are usually of three types:

Spaceflight began in the 20th century following theoretical and practical breakthroughs by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, and Hermann Oberth. First successful large-scale rocket programs were initiated in the 1920s Germany by Fritz von Opel and Max Valier, and eventually in Nazi Germany by Wernher von Braun. The Soviet Union took the lead in the post-war Space Race, launching the first satellite, the first man and the first woman into orbit. The United States caught up with, and then passed, their Soviet rivals during the mid-1960s, landing the first men on the Moon in 1969. In the same period, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and China were concurrently developing more limited launch capabilities.

Globus IMP instruments were spacecraft navigation instruments used in Soviet and Russian crewed spacecraft. The IMP acronym stems from the Russian expression Indicator of position in flight, but the instrument is informally referred to as the Globus. It displays the nadir of the spacecraft on a rotating terrestrial globe. It functions as an onboard, autonomous indicator of the spacecraft's location relative to Earth coordinates. An electro-mechanical device in the tradition of complex post-World War II clocks such as master clocks, the Globus IMP instrument incorporates hundreds of mechanical components common to horology. This instrument is a mechanical computer for navigation akin to the Norden bombsight. It mechanically computes complex functions and displays its output through mechanical displacements of the globe and other indicator components. It also modulates electric signals from other instruments.

References

↑ Sparrow, Giles (2019). Spaceflight : the complete story, from Sputnik to Curiosity (Second [American] ed.). New York: Dorling Kindersley Limited. p. 82. ISBN 978-1465479655.
1 2 "FAI Sporting Code Section 8 – Astronautics, 2009 Edition (Class K, Class P)" (PDF). Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 November 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
↑ Williams, Matthew S. (28 April 2022). "Ad Astra: The past, present, and future of spacecraft". interestingengineering.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-10. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
↑ "Vostok/Mercury". abyss.uoregon.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-08-05. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
↑ Burgess, Colin (2009). The first Soviet cosmonaut team : their lives, legacy, and historical impact. Berlin: Springer. p. xxiii. ISBN 978-0387848235.

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[1] Sparrow, Giles (2019). Spaceflight : the complete story, from Sputnik to Curiosity (Second [American] ed.). New York: Dorling Kindersley Limited. p. 82. ISBN 978-1465479655.

[NAA-2] 1 2 "FAI Sporting Code Section 8 – Astronautics, 2009 Edition (Class K, Class P)" (PDF). Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 November 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2023.

[3] Williams, Matthew S. (28 April 2022). "Ad Astra: The past, present, and future of spacecraft". interestingengineering.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-10. Retrieved 10 January 2023.

[4] "Vostok/Mercury". abyss.uoregon.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-08-05. Retrieved 10 January 2023.

[5] Burgess, Colin (2009). The first Soviet cosmonaut team : their lives, legacy, and historical impact. Berlin: Springer. p. xxiii. ISBN 978-0387848235.

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List of human spaceflights, 1961–1970

Contents

Flights between 50 miles and 100 kilometers

See also

Related Research Articles

References