List of spaceflight records

thumb|right|The first [[space rendezvous was accomplished by Gemini 6A and Gemini 7 in 1965.]]

Records and firsts in spaceflight are broadly divided into crewed and uncrewed categories. Records involving animal spaceflight have also been noted in earlier experimental flights, typically to establish the feasibility of sending humans to outer space.

The notion of "firsts" in spaceflight follows a long tradition of firsts in aviation, but is also closely tied to the Space Race. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States competed to be the first countries to accomplish various feats. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial orbital satellite. In 1961, Soviet Vostok 1 cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to enter space and orbit the Earth, and in 1969 American Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the Moon.

During the 1970s, the Soviet Union directed its energies to human habitation of space stations of increasingly long durations. In the 1980s, the United States began launching its Space Shuttles, which carried larger crews and thus could increase the number of people in space at a given time. Following their first mission of détente on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the Soviet Union and the United States again collaborated with each other on the Shuttle-Mir initiative, efforts which led to the International Space Station (ISS), which has been continuously inhabited by humans for over 20 years.

Other firsts in spaceflight involve demographics, private enterprise, and distance. Dozens of countries have sent at least one traveler to space. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, aboard Vostok 6. In the early 21st century, private companies joined government agencies in crewed spaceflight: in 2004, the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded crewed craft to enter space; in 2020, SpaceX's Dragon 2 became the first privately developed crewed vehicle to reach orbit when it ferried a crew to the ISS. As of , the uncrewed probe Voyager 1 is the most distant artificial object from the Earth, part of a small class of vehicles that are leaving the Solar System.

First independent suborbital and orbital human spaceflight by country

{| class="wikitable"

|- style="background:#efefef;"

! style="text-align:left" |Country

! style="text-align:left" |Mission

! style="text-align:left" |Crew

! style="text-align:left" |Spacecraft

! style="text-align:left" |Launch vehicle

! style="text-align:left" |Date

! style="text-align:left" |Type

! style="text-align:left" |Notes

|- valign="top"

|| USSR

||Vostok 1

||Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7)

||Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7)

||Shenzhou 5

|| USSR

||12 April 1961

|- valign="top"

||Alan Shepard

||Freedom 7

|| USA

||5 May 1961

|- valign="top"

||Gherman Titov

||Vostok 2

|| USSR

||6 August 1961 – 7 August 1961

|- valign="top"

|| USSR

||12 August 1962 – 15 August 1962

|- valign="top"

||200px|left

||Valentina Tereshkova

||Vostok 6

|| USSR

||16 June 1963 – 19 June 1963

|- valign="top"

||Joe Walker

||X-15 Flight 90

|| USA

||19 July 1963

|- valign="top"

||Person to enter space twice (suborbital flights above )

||Joe Walker

||X-15 Flights 90 and 91

|| USA

||22 August 1963

|- valign="top"

||Voskhod 1

||Gemini 10

|| USA

|- valign="top"

|Persons to exceed 1,000 km above Earth left|200px

|Gemini 11

| USA

|12 September 1966 –

15 September 1966

|- valign="top"

||Spaceflight death (during landing) left|279x279px

||Vladimir Komarov

||Soyuz 1

|| USSR

||23 April 1967 – 24 April 1967

|- valign="top"

|| left|243x243px

||Wally Schirra

|| USA

||22 October 1968

|- valign="top"

|| left|200px

||Apollo 8

|| USA

||24 December 1968 – 25 December 1968

|- valign="top"

|People to fly together twice on different missions

| USA

|21 December 1968

|- valign="top"

|| USSR

||16 January 1969

|- valign="top"

||Solo flight around the Moon

||John Young

||Apollo 10

|| USA

||22 May 1969

|- valign="top"

|| left|200px

||Apollo 11

|| USA

||20 July 1969

|- valign="top"

||Five people in space at the same time

|| USSR

||12 October 1969 – 13 October 1969

|- valign="top"

|| USSR

||13 October 1969 – 16 October 1969

|- valign="top"

||Person to complete four spaceflightsleft|250x250px

||James A. Lovell

|| USA

||17 April 1970

|- valign="top"

||James A. Lovell

|| USA

||11 April 1970 – 17 April 1970

|- valign="top"

||left|200x200px

|| USA

||11 April 1970 – 17 April 1970

|- valign="top"

||Soyuz 9

|| USSR

||1 June 1970 – 19 June 1970

|- valign="top"

||People to EVA out of sight of their spacecraft

||Apollo 14

|| USA

||6 February 1971

|- valign="top"

|Person to play sports on a planetary body other than Earth

|Alan Shepard

|Apollo 14

| USA

|7 February 1971

|- valign="top"

|| left|200px

|| USSR

||22 April 1971 – 24 April 1971

|- valign="top"

|| left|200px

|| USSR

||7 June 1971 – 29 June 1971

|- valign="top"

|Person to use a telescope in space

|Viktor Patsayev

| USSR

|7 June 1971 – 29 June 1971

|- valign="top"

||People to travel in a wheeled vehicle on a planetary body other than Earth Scott on the Rover – GPN-2000-001306|200px

||Apollo 15

|| USA

||31 July 1971– 2 August 1971

|- valign="top"

||Deep space EVA (trans-Earth trajectory)left|200x200px

||Alfred Worden

||Apollo 15

|| USA

||5 August 1971

|- valign="top"

||Person to be in lunar orbit twice (during separate lunar expeditions)

||John W. Young

|| USA

||16 April 1972 – 27 April 1972

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit for four weeksleft|200x200px

||Skylab 2

|| USA

||25 May 1973 – 22 June 1973

|- valign="top"

|Spacewalk at a space station

|Paul Weitz

|Skylab 2

| USA

|26 May 1973

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit for eight weeksleft|200x200px

||Skylab 3

|| USA

||28 July 1973 – 25 September 1973

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit for 12 weeksleft|200x200px

||Skylab 4

|| USA

||16 November 1973 – 8 February 1974

|- valign="top"

||Vasily Lazarev, Oleg Makarov

||Soyuz 7K-T No.39

|| USSR

||5 April 1975

|- valign="top"

|International dockingleft|200x200px

|Thomas P. Stafford, Vance D. Brand, Donald K. Slayton – USA

Alexei Leonov, Valeri Kubasov – USSR

|Apollo–Soyuz

|USA

USSR

|17 July 1975

|- valign="top"

||Crew to visit occupied space station

||Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Oleg Makarov

||Soyuz 27 visits Salyut 6 EO-1 crew

|| USSR

||10 January 1978 – 16 January 1978

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit 19 weeks (4 months)

||Vladimir Kovalyonok, Aleksandr Ivanchenkov

||Salyut 6 EO-2, Soyuz 29-Soyuz 31

|| USSR

||15 June 1978 – 2 November 1978

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit 26 weeks (6 months)

||Leonid Popov, Valery Ryumin

||Salyut 6 EO-4, Soyuz 35-Soyuz 37

|| USSR

||9 April 1980 – 11 October 1980

|- valign="top"

Spaceflight (orbital) by winged spacecraft
Spaceflight (orbital) of a reusable spacecraft
First, and only, crew launched on a rocket's maiden flight 200px|left

||STS-1

|| USA

||12 April 1981

|- valign="top"

||Person to fly four different types of spacecraft

||John W. Young

|| USA

||12 April 1981

|- valign="top"

||Person to complete five spaceflights

||John W. Young

|| USA

||14 April 1981

|- valign="top"

||Re-use of previously flown spacecraft (orbital) 200px|left

||STS-2

|| USA

||12 November 1981

|- valign="top"

|Woman to visit a space station

|Svetlana Savitskaya

|Salyut 7, Soyuz T-7

| USSR

|20 August 1982

|- valign="top"

||Four-person spaceflight in a single spacecraft 200px|left

||STS-5

|| USA

||11 November 1982 – 16 November 1982

|- valign="top"

||Five-person spaceflight in a single spacecraft 200px|left

||STS-7

|| USA

||18 June 1983 – 24 June 1983

|- valign="top"

||LGBTQ person in space

||Sally K. Ride

||STS-7

|| USA

||18 June 1983 – 24 June 1983

|Use of a launch escape system in an emergencyleft|200x200px

|Vladimir Titov, Gennady Strekalov

|Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L

| USSR

|26 September 1983

|- valign="top"

||Six-person spaceflight in a single spacecraft 200px|left

||STS-9

||28 November 1983 – 8 December 1983

|- valign="top"

||Person to complete six spaceflightsleft|250x250px

||John W. Young

|| USA

||8 December 1983

|- valign="top"

||Untethered spacewalk left|200px

||Bruce McCandless II

||STS-41-B

|| USA

||7 February 1984

|- valign="top"

||Eight people in space at the same time (no docking)

||Salyut 7 EO-3, Soyuz T-10, STS-41-B

||8 February 1984 – 11 February 1984

|- valign="top"

||11 people in space at the same time (no docking)

||STS-41-C, Salyut 7 EO-3, Soyuz T-10-Soyuz T-11

||6 April 1984 – 11 April 1984

|- valign="top"

||People to complete four spacewalks during the same mission

||Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov

||Salyut 7

|| USSR

|| 26 April – 18 May 1984

|- valign="top"

|Woman to enter space twice

|Svetlana Savitskaya

|Soyuz T-7, Soyuz T-12

| USSR

|17 July 1984

|- valign="top"

||Spacewalk by a woman 200px|left

||Svetlana Savitskaya

||Soyuz T-12

|| USSR

||25 July 1984

|- valign="top"

||Welding in space

||Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Svetlana Savitskaya

||Salyut 7, Soyuz T-12

|| USSR

||25 July 1984

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit 33 weeks (7 months)

||Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov, Oleg Atkov

||Salyut 7 EO-3, Soyuz T-10-Soyuz T-11

|| USSR

||8 February 1984 – 2 October 1984

|- valign="top"

||Seven-person spaceflight in a single spacecraft 200px|left

||STS-41-G

||5 October 1984 – 13 October 1984

|- valign="top"

||Two women in space at the same time

||Kathryn D. Sullivan, Sally K. Ride

||STS-41-G

|| USA

||5 October 1984 – 13 October 1984

|- valign="top"

|Member of royalty in space 200px|left

|Sultan bin Salman Al Saud – House of Saud

|STS-51-G

| Saudi Arabia USA

|17 June 1985 – 24 June 1985

|- valign="top"

||Partial crew exchange at a space station

||Alexander Volkov, Vladimir Vasyutin replace Vladimir Dzhanibekov

||Soyuz T-14, Salyut 7

|| USSR

||17 September 1985 – 26 September 1985

|- valign="top"

||Eight-person spaceflight in a single spacecraft 200px|left

||STS-61-A

||30 October 1985 – 6 November 1985

|- valign="top"

||Deaths during launchleft|200x200px

||STS-51-L

|| USA

||28 January 1986

|- valign="top"

||Soyuz T-15 from Mir to Salyut 7 back to Mir

|| USSR

||15 March 1986 – 16 July 1986

|- valign="top"

||Person to accumulate 1 year in space

||Leonid Kizim

||Soyuz T-3

Soyuz T-15 visiting Mir and Salyut 7

|| USSR

||28 June 1986

|- valign="top"

||Complete crew exchange at a space station

||Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov replace Yuri Romanenko, Alexander Alexandrov

||Soyuz TM-4-Soyuz TM-2, Soyuz TM-3, at Mir

|| USSR

||21 December 1987 – 29 December 1987

|- valign="top"

||People in orbit 52 weeks (one year)

||Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov

||Mir EO-3, Soyuz TM-4-Soyuz TM-6

|| USSR

||21 December 1987 – 21 December 1988

|- valign="top"

|International spacewalk

|Alexander Volkov, Jean-Loup Chrétien

|Mir, Soyuz TM-7

|9 December 1988

|- valign="top"

|Submariner in space 200px|left

|Michael J. McCulley

|STS-34

| USA

|18 October 1989 – 23 October 1989

|- valign="top"

||12 people in space at the same time (no docking)

||STS-35, Mir EO-7, Soyuz TM-10 Soyuz TM-11

||2 December 1990 – 10 December 1990

|- valign="top"

|Civilian to use a commercial space flight, and journalist to report on space from outer space left|293x293px

|Toyohiro Akiyama – Japan

|Soyuz TM-10, Soyuz TM-11

| Japan

|2 December 1990 – 10 December 1990

|- valign="top"

||Three women in space at the same time

||Millie Hughes-Fulford, Tamara E. Jernigan, M. Rhea Seddon

||STS-40

|| USA

||5 June 1991 – 14 June 1991

|- valign="top"

||Three-person spacewalk left|200px

||STS-49

|| USA

||13 May 1992

|- valign="top"

||Married couple in space

||Mark C. Lee, Jan Davis

||STS-47

|| USA

||12 September 1992 – 20 September 1992

|- valign="top"

||13 people in space at the same time (no docking)

||STS-67, Mir, Soyuz TM-20, Soyuz TM-21

||14 March 1995 – 18 March 1995

|- valign="top"

||Ten people in a single spacecraft (docking) 200px|left

||STS-71, Mir, Soyuz TM-21

||29 June 1995 – 4 July 1995

|- valign="top"

|Spacewalk during an international docking

|Michael R. Clifford, Linda M. Godwin

|STS-76, Mir

| USA

|27 March 1996

|- valign="top"

||Person to accumulate 2 years in space

||Sergey Avdeev

||Soyuz TM-15 (Mir EO-12)

Soyuz TM-22 (Mir EO-20)

Soyuz TM-28/Soyuz TM-29 Mir EO 27

|| Russia

||10 July 1999

|- valign="top"

|Woman to command a space mission200px|left

|Eileen Collins

|STS-93

| USA

|23 July 1999 – 27 July 1999

|- valign="top"

||Space tourist left|200x200px

||Dennis Tito

||Soyuz TM-32/31, ISS EP-1

||April 28, 2001 – May 6, 2001

|- valign="top"

||Person to complete seven trips to space 200px|left

||Jerry L. Ross

|| USA

||19 April 2002

|- valign="top"

||Deaths during re-entry 200px|left

||STS-107

||1 February 2003

|- valign="top"

<!--||

||Yang Liwei– China

||Shenzhou 5

|| China

||15 October 2003

|- valign="top" This list is for global firsts-->

||Privately funded human space flight (suborbital) 200px|left

||Mike Melvill

||SpaceShipOne flight 15P

|| USA

||21 June 2004

|- valign="top"

||13 people in a single spacecraft (docking)

200px|left

||30 May 2020 – 2 August 2020

|- valign="top"

|16 people in space (50 miles) at the same time (no docking)

||11 July 2021

|- valign="top"

|14 people in space (100 km) at the same time (no docking)

||20 July 2021

|- valign="top"

|| left|200x200px

|Inspiration4

| USA

|16 September 2021 – 18 September 2021

|- valign="top"

|| left|200x200px

|Inspiration4

| USA

|16 September 2021 – 18 September 2021

|- valign="top"

||

|Inspiration4

| USA

|16 September 2021 – 18 September 2021

|- valign="top"

|14 people in orbit at the same time (no docking)

||16 September 2021 – 17 September 2021

|- valign="top"

|19 people in space (100 km) at the same time (no docking)

||11 December 2021

|- valign="top"

|| left|200x200px

|Axiom Mission 1 To ISS

|8 April 2022 – 18 April 2022

|- valign="top"

||

|5 June 2022 – present

|- valign="top"

|5 women in space at the same time (no docking)

||5 October 2022 – 14 October 2022

|- valign = "top"

|20 people in space (50 miles) at the same time (no docking)

|25 May 2023

|- valign = "top"

|17 people in orbit at the same time (no docking)

|30 May 2023 – 31 May 2023

|- valign="top"

||Seven spacecraft docked to a space station

||25 March 2024

|- valign="top"

||Person to accumulate 1000 days in space

||Oleg Kononenko

||Expedition 71

|| Russia

||5 June 2024

|- valign="top"

||Woman to fly on the maiden crewed flight of an orbital spacecraft

||Sunita Williams

||Boeing CFT

|| USA

||5 June 2024

|- valign="top"

||Person to accumulate 3 years in space left|200x200px

||Oleg Kononenko

||Soyuz TMA-12 (Expedition 17) Soyuz TMA-03M (Expedition 30/31)

Soyuz TMA-17M (Expedition 44/45) Soyuz MS-11 (Expedition 57/58/59) Soyuz MS-24/MS-25 (Expedition 69/70/71)

|| Russia

||9 September 2024

|- valign = "top"

|19 people in orbit at the same time (no docking)

|11 September 2024 – 15 September 2024

|- valign="top"

|| left|267x267px

||Jared Isaacman Scott Poteet Sarah Gillis Anna Menon

||Polaris Dawn

|| USA

||12 September 2024

|- valign="top"

||First humans to polar retrograde orbit, i.e., to fly over Earth's North and South poles

||Chun Wang Jannicke Mikkelsen Rabea Rogge Eric Philips

||Fram2

|| / /

||1 April 2025

|- valign="top"

||9 women in space at the same time (no docking)

||USA China Bahamas

||14 April 2025

|- valign="top"

|20 people in space (100 km) at the same time (no docking)

||29 June 2025

|- valign="top"

||Eight spacecraft docked to a space station

||1 December 2025

|- valign="top"

||First wheelchair user in space

|| Michaela Benthaus

||Blue Origin NS-37

| Germany

||20 December 2025

|- valign="top"

|| left|267x267px

||Artemis II

||1 April 2026 – 10 April 2026

Most spaceflights

Most launches from Earth

10 launches
Frederick W. Sturckow (USA), Space Shuttle and SpaceShipTwo (1998–2024)

Note: The six SpaceShipTwo flights surpass the U.S. definition of spaceflight (), but fall short of the Kármán line (), the definition used for FAI space recordkeeping.

Most orbital launches overall

7 launches
John W. Young (USA) launched from Earth 6 times (two Titan II Gemini, two Saturn V Apollo CSM, two Space Shuttle) and from the Moon once (Apollo Lunar Module Ascent Stage) (1965–1983)
Jerry L. Ross (USA He later became the first person to stay 900, 1,000, and 1,100 days in space on 25 February 2024, 4 June 2024, and 12 September 2024 respectively. Gennady Padalka is currently second, having spent 878 days in space. He himself had broken the all-time duration record on 28 June 2015 when he surpassed the previous record holder, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who spent 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes (about 2.2 years) during six spaceflights on Soyuz, the Space Shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station.

, the 50 space travelers with the most total time in space are:

Color key:

{| class="wikitable sticky-header"

|- style="background:#efefef;"

! Rank

! Person

! Days

! Flights

! Status

! Nationality

|1||Oleg Kononenko||1,110.623||5||Active||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|2||Gennady Padalka||878.478||5||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|3||Yuri Malenchenko ||827.389||6||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|4||Sergei Krikalev||803.371||6||Retired|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|5||Aleksandr Kaleri||769.276||5||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|6||Sergei Avdeev||747.593||3||Retired|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|7||Anton Shkaplerov||709.336||4||Retired||

|8||Peggy Whitson||695.284||5||Active||

|- style="background:#FAD6A5;"

|9||Valeri Polyakov||678.690||2||Deceased|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|10||Fyodor Yurchikhin||672.860||5||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|11||Anatoly Solovyev||651.117||5||Retired|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|12||Sunita Williams||608.014||3||Retired||

|13||Sergey Ryzhikov||603.071||3||Active||

|14||Aleksey Ovchinin||595.185||3||Active||

|15||Donald Pettit||590.068||4||Active||

|16||Sergey Prokopyev||567.633||2||Active||

|17||Oleg Artemyev||560.754||3||Active||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|18||Viktor Afanasyev||555.772||4||Retired|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|19||Yury Usachov||552.934||4||Retired||

|20||Michael Fincke||548.339||4||Active||

|- style="background:#ffdddd;"

|21||Sergey Volkov||547.931||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|22||Pavel Vinogradov||546.939||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|23||Aleksandr Skvortsov||545.964||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|24||Oleg Novitsky||545.069||4||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|25||Musa Manarov||541.021||2||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|26||Oleg Skripochka||536.159||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|27||Jeffrey Williams||534.116||4||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|28||Mikhail Tyurin||532.118||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|29||Oleg Kotov||526.211||3||Retired||

|30||Mark T. Vande Hei||523.374||2||Active||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|31||Scott Kelly||520.440||4||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|32||Mikhail Kornienko||516.417||2||Retired||

|33||Koichi Wakata||504.773||5||Active||

|- style="background:#FAD6A5;"

|34||Aleksandr Viktorenko||489.066||4||Deceased|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|35||Anatoli Ivanishin||476.195||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|36||Barry E. Wilmore||464.335||3||Retired||

|37||Michael Barratt||446.640||3||Active||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|38||Nikolai Budarin||444.060||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|39||Yuri Romanenko||430.765||3||Retired||

|40||Chen Dong||418.635||3||Active||

|41||Ivan Vagner||416.157||2||Active||

|42||Thomas Pesquet||396.482||2||Active||

|43||Zhang Lu||396.161||2||Active||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|44||Aleksandr Volkov||391.495||3||Retired|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|45||Yury Onufriyenko||389.615||2||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|46||Shane Kimbrough||388.728||3||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|47||Vladimir Titov||387.031||4||Retired|| /

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|48||Vasily Tsibliyev||381.662||2||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|49||Valery Korzun||381.653||2||Retired||

|- style="background:#fdd;"

|50||Christopher Cassidy||377.742||3||Retired||

Ten longest human spaceflights

{| class="wikitable sortable sticky-header"

! #

! Time in space

! class="unsortable"| Crew

! Country

! Launch date (Launch craft)

! Landing date (Landing craft)

! Space station or mission type

| 1

| 437.7 days

|Vladimir Titov

|Pyotr Dubrov

|rowspan=2|2021-04-09 (Soyuz MS-18)

|rowspan=2|2022-03-30 (Soyuz MS-19)

|rowspan=2|International Space Station

|Mark T. Vande Hei

|rowspan=2|7

|rowspan=2|340.4 days

|Mikhail Kornienko

|rowspan=2|2015-03-27 (Soyuz TMA-16M)

|rowspan=2|2016-03-01 (Soyuz TMA-18M)

|rowspan=2|International Space Station, ISS year-long mission

|Scott Kelly

| 8

| 328.6 days

| 2019-03-14 (Soyuz MS-12)

| 2020-02-06 (Soyuz MS-13)

| International Space Station

| 9

| 326.5 days

|Yuri Romanenko

| Sergei Krikalev Since then space has been continuously occupied for . The flight set a space endurance record which was broken in 1965 by the (non-solo) Gemini 5 flight. The Apollo program included long solo spaceflight, and during the Apollo 16 mission, Ken Mattingly orbited solo around the Moon for more than 3 days and 9 hours.

Longest time on the lunar surface

Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission stayed for 74 hours 59 minutes and 40 seconds (over 3 days) on the lunar surface after they landed on 11 December 1972. They performed three EVAs (extra-vehicular activity) totaling 22 hours 3 minutes, 57 seconds. As Apollo commanders were the first to exit the LM and the last to re-enter, Cernan's EVA time was slightly longer. along with five mice. For the solo portion of a flight around the Moon, Ken Mattingly on Apollo 16 spent 1 hour 38 minutes longer than Evans' solo duration.

Speed and altitude records

Fastest

The Apollo 10 crew (Thomas Stafford, John W. Young and Eugene Cernan) achieved the highest speed relative to Earth ever attained by humans: 39,897 kilometers per hour (11,082 meters per second or 24,791 miles per hour, about 32 times the speed of sound and 0.0037% of the speed of light). The record was set 26 May 1969, upon atmospheric entry interface after returning from the Moon.

The farthest uncrewed spacecraft is Voyager 1, at a distance of approximately one light day from Earth as of 2026. Launched in 1977, it became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space on 25 August 2012.

Highest altitude for crewed non-lunar mission

Polaris Dawn crew Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon fired their Crew Dragon Resilience's Draco thrusters on 11 September 2024 at 00:27 UTC, at 15 hours and 4 minutes after liftoff and achieved a record apogee altitude of .

Age records

thumb|upright=0.5|Wally Funk flew in July 2021

thumb|upright=0.5|Joe Walker in 1961

Earliest-born to reach space

Suborbital flight

Man – Joe Walker (born 20 February 1921), on X-15 Flight 90 on 19 July 1963 (about 12 minutes.)
Woman – Wally Funk (born 1 February 1939), on Blue Origin NS-16, on 20 July 2021 (about 10 minutes.)

Orbital spaceflight

Man – Georgy Beregovoy (born 15 April 1921), on Soyuz 3 on 26 October 1968 (81 orbits in about 4 days.)
Woman – Valentina Tereshkova (born 6 March 1937), on Vostok 6 on 16–19 June 1963 (48 orbits, about 3 days.)

Youngest

Suborbital flight

Woman – Anastatia Mayers (aged ), on Galactic 02, on 10 August 2023 (about 5 minutes.)
Man – Oliver Daemen (aged ), on Blue Origin NS-16, on 20 July 2021 (about 10 minutes.)

Orbital spaceflight

Man – Gherman Titov (aged ), on Vostok 2 on 6 August 1961 (17.5 orbits, about 1 day.)
Woman: Peggy Whitson (aged ), on Axiom Mission 4 on 25 June 2025 (about 20 days, 2 hours and 59 minutes).

Spacewalk

Youngest

Woman – Sarah Gillis, (aged ), during Polaris Dawn.
Man – Alexei Leonov (aged ), during Voskhod 2.

Oldest

Man – Michael Barratt (aged ), during ISS Expedition 71.
Woman – Sunita Williams (aged ), during ISS Expedition 72.

Spacewalk records

Most spacewalks (number and duration)

Both of these are the record for the largest total number of spacewalks by a male and a female, and the most cumulative time spent on spacewalks by a male and a female.

Man – Anatoly Solovyev, 16 spacewalks for a total time of 82 hours, 21 minutes.
Woman (number) – Peggy Whitson, 10 spacewalks for a total time of 60 hours, 21 minutes.
Woman (cumulative time) – Sunita Williams, 9 spacewalks for a total time of 62 hours, and 6 minutes.

Most spacewalks during a single mission

7: Anatoly Solovyev, during Expedition 24 on the Soviet/Russian space station Mir, in 1997–98. (Two were internal "spacewalks" inside a depressurized module.)
7: Andrew Morgan, during his first spaceflight on board the ISS for Expedition 60/61/62 in 2019–2020; he spent 45 hours and 48 minutes outside the station.

Longest spacewalks

Man – Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong, 9 hours 6 minutes, during the Shenzhou 19 mission on 17 December 2024, as they installed space debris protection devices on the exterior of the Tiangong Space Station.
Woman – Susan Helms, 8 hours 56 minutes, along with James Voss on an ISS assembly mission during Shuttle mission STS-102 on 11 March 2001. The spacewalkers were delayed early in their excursion when a device to help hold an astronaut's feet to the shuttle's robot arm became untethered, and Voss had to retrieve a spare from storage on the exterior of the station's Unity module. After about six hours of work, the pair reentered Space Shuttle Discoverys airlock.

Greatest distance from a spacecraft during a spacewalk

All-time (and while on a planetary body): 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles, 25,029 feet), Apollo 17, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, EVA-2, December 12, 1972. During their second of three moonwalks, Cernan and Schmitt rode the Lunar Roving Vehicle to geological station 2, Nansen Crater, at the foot of the South Massif. As all spacewalks not occurring on a planetary body (the Moon) have involved short maximum distances from the spacecraft (see below), this remains the farthest distance that humans have traveled away from the safety of a pressurizable spacecraft, during an EVA of any type.
Orbital flight: about 100 meters (or 330 feet), Bruce McCandless, STS-41-B, February 7, 1984. With the exception of six Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) sorties in 1984 and a test of the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER) in 1994, all other orbital spacewalks have involved a safety tether, anchoring the spacefarer to the spacecraft at a short distance. Of all spacewalks to date, Bruce McCandless' first test of the MMU established an orbital EVA distance record from a spacecraft which remained unbroken by later untethered EVAs.

Animal records

First animals in space

The first animals to enter space were fruit flies launched by the United States in 1947 aboard a V-2 rocket to an altitude of . Albert II, a rhesus monkey, became the first mammal in space aboard a U.S. V-2 rocket on June 14, 1949, and died on reentry due to a parachute failure. The first dogs in space were launched 22 July 1951 aboard a Soviet R-1V. "Tsygin" and "Dezik" reached a height of and safely parachuted back to Earth.

First animal in orbit

Laika was a Soviet female canine launched on 3 November 1957 on Sputnik 2. The technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, so there was no expectation for survival. She died several hours into flight. Belka and Strelka became the first canines to safely return to Earth from orbit on 19 August 1960.

First Hominidae in space

On 31 January 1961, through NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2 mission the chimpanzee Ham became the first great ape in space.

Longest canine single flight

Soviet space dogs (, "Light Wind") and (, "Ember") were launched on 22 February 1966 on board Cosmos 110 and spent 22 days in orbit before landing on 16 March.

First animals beyond low Earth orbit

An assortment of animals including a pair of Russian tortoises, as well as wine flies and mealworms flew around the Moon with a number of other biological specimens including seeds and bacteria on a circumlunar mission aboard the Soviet Zond 5 spacecraft on 18 September 1968.

||First dogs in space (suborbital flight). Successfully recovered.

|| USSR

||22 July 1951

||Earth

||Sputnik 1

||First satellite in orbit.

|| USSR

||19 August 1960

||Earth

||Mercury-Redstone 2

||First great ape or Hominidae in space, Ham, a chimpanzee (suborbital flight).

|| USA

||26 April 1962

||Earth

||Alouette 1

||First satellite designed and constructed by a country other than the USA or USSR (the British satellite Ariel 1, launched five months earlier, was designed and constructed by the USA).

|| Canada

||29 September 1962

||Venus

||Mariner 2

||First planetary flyby with communication contact. Distance of .

|| USA

||14 December 1962

||Earth

||Lincoln Calibration Sphere 1

||Oldest spacecraft still in use (59 years ).

|| USA

||6 May 1965

||Mars

||Mariner 4

||First flyby and first planetary imaging. Distance of .

|| USA

||14 July 1965

||Earth

||Astérix

||First satellite launched independently by a nation other than the USA or USSR (other nations had previously flown satellites launched on American rockets).

|| France

||26 November 1965

||Moon

||Luna 9

||First soft landing and first pictures from the lunar surface. Arabidopsis thaliana Valentin Lebedev.

|| USSR

||1 July 1982

||Trans-Neptunian region

||Pioneer 10

||First to travel past the orbit of Neptune, the farthest major planet from the Sun.

|| USA

||13 June 1983

||Venus

||Vega 1

||First helium balloon atmospheric probe. First flight (as opposed to atmospheric entry) in another planet's atmosphere.

|| USSR

||11 June 1985

||Comet Giacobini-Zinner

||International Cometary Explorer (ICE)

||First flyby through a comet tail (no pictures). Distance of .

|| USA

||11 September 1985

||Uranus

||Voyager 2

||First flyby. Distance of .

|| USA

||24 January 1986

||Comet Halley

||Vega 1

||First comet flyby (with pictures returned). Distance of .

|| USSR

||6 March 1986

||Earth

||Mir Core Module, Kvant-1

||First modular space station.

|| USSR

||9 April 1987

||Orbital Spaceplane

||Buran

||First fully automated orbital flight of a spaceplane (with airstrip landing).

|| USSR

||15 November 1988

||Phobos

||Phobos 2

||First flyby. Distance of .

|| USSR

||21 February 1989

||Neptune

||Voyager 2

||First flyby. Distance of .

|| USA

||25 August 1989

||Moon

||Hiten

||First lunar probe launched by a country other than the USA or USSR.

|| Japan

||18 March 1990

||951 Gaspra

||Galileo

||First asteroid flyby. Distance of .

|| USA

||29 October 1991

||Jupiter

||Galileo probe

||First impact.

|| USA

||7 December 1995

||Jupiter

||Galileo

||First orbiter.

|| USA

||8 December 1995

||Mars

||Mars Pathfinder

||First automated roving vehicle, Sojourner.

|| USA

||4 July 1997

||433 Eros

||NEAR Shoemaker

||First asteroid orbiter.

|| USA

||14 February 2000

||433 Eros

||NEAR Shoemaker

||First asteroid soft landing.

|| USA

||12 February 2001

||Saturn

||Cassini orbiter

||First orbiter.

||1 July 2004

||Solar wind

||Genesis

||First sample return from farther than the Moon.

|| USA

||8 September 2004

||Titan

||Huygens probe

||First soft landing and the farthest landing ever made.

||14 January 2005

||Comet Tempel 1

||Deep Impact

||First comet impact.

|| USA

||4 July 2005

||25143 Itokawa

||Hayabusa

|| Japan

||19 November 2005

||81P/Wild

||Stardust

||First sample return from comet.

|| USA

||15 January 2006

||Earth

||Voyager 1

|| USA

||Longest time in operation

||Voyager 2

||Longest continually operating space probe (since August 1977).

|| USA

||Moon

||Moon Impact Probe

||First impact on Lunar south pole and discovery of water on Moon.

|| India

||14 November 2008

||Earth to Venus trajectory

||IKAROS

||First interplanetary solar sail.

|| Japan

||Set sail on 10 June 2010

||25143 Itokawa

||Hayabusa

||First sample return from an asteroid.

|| Japan

||13 June 2010

||Mercury

||MESSENGER

||First orbiter.

|| USA

||17 March 2011

||Earth–Sun L2 Lagrange point

||Chang'e 2

||First spacecraft to reach the L2 Lagrangian point directly from lunar orbit.

|| China

||25 August 2011

||International Space Station

||SpaceX Dragon 1

||First commercial spacecraft to berth with the International Space Station.

|| USA

||25 May 2012

||Interstellar medium

||Voyager 1

||First spacecraft to cross the heliopause, thereby exiting the heliosphere and entering interstellar space.

|| USA

||25 August 2012

||4179 Toutatis

||Chang'e 2

|| China

||13 December 2012

||67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

||Rosetta

||First comet orbiter.

||20px|link=European Space Agency ESA

||6 August 2014

||Mars

||MOM

||First Asian nation to achieve Mars orbit and first in the world to do so in first attempt.

|| India

||24 September 2014

||67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

||Philae

||First comet soft landing.

||20px|link=European Space Agency ESA

||12 November 2014

||Ceres

||Dawn

||First dwarf planet orbiter.

|| USA

||6 March 2015

||Mars

||Opportunity

||Longest distance traveled on surface of another world (, marathon-length).

|| USA

||23 March 2015

||Mercury

||MESSENGER

||First impact.

|| USA

||30 April 2015

||Pluto

||New Horizons

|| USA

||14 July 2015

||All 9 planets in the pre-IAU redefinition version of the Solar System

||All United States spacecraft including New Horizons

||With the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, the United States is the first nation to have its space probes explore all nine planets in the pre-2006 IAU redefinition version of the Solar System.

|| USA

||14 July 2015

||Earth

||Falcon 9 (B1021)

||First re-flight of an orbital class rocket stage after a vertical propulsive landing.

|| USA

||30 March 2017

||Earth

||Shortest period between orbital launches (launched 72 seconds apart).

||23 December 2017

||1.66 au heliocentric orbit

||Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster on Falcon Heavy Test Flight

||First successful Deep Space mission launched successfully on a rocket's maiden flight

|| USA

||6 February 2018

||Moon

||Chang'e 4

||First soft landing at the far side of the Moon.

|| China

||3 January 2019

||Moon

||Yutu-2

||First lunar rover traversing the far side of the Moon.

|| China

||3 January 2019

|Moon

|Beresheet

|First commercial/privately funded spacecraft to enter lunar orbit.

| Israel

|4 April 2019

|101955 Bennu

|OSIRIS-REx

|Smallest body to be orbited by spacecraft ( diameter) and closest ever orbit ( altitude).

| USA

|12 June 2019

||Moon

||Yutu-2

||Longest operational lunar rover after breaking the longevity record of 321 Earth days held by Soviet Union's Lunokhod 1 rover.

|| China

||20 November 2019

||Moon

||Chang'e 5

||First robotic rendezvous and docking by two spacecraft (lunar orbiter attached with reentry-capsule and lunar ascent vehicle) in lunar orbit or any orbit other than Earth's.

|| China

||5 December 2020

||Moon

||Chang'e 5

||First robotic transfer of payload (lunar samples from lunar ascent vehicle to reentry capsule) between two docked spacecraft in lunar orbit or any orbit other than Earth's.

|| China

||5 December 2020

||Mars

||Ingenuity

||First controlled, powered flight by a rotary wing aircraft on another planet.

|| USA

||19 April 2021

||Earth

||Zhuque-2

||First methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit

|| China

||12 July 2023

||Moon

||Chandrayaan-3

||First soft landing at Lunar south polar region.

|| India

||23 August 2023

||Moon

||IM-1 Odysseus

||First successful commercial and first cryogenic propelled lunar landing. First soft landing within the lunar south pole region at

|| USA

||22 February 2024

||Moon

||Chang'e 6

||First sample collection and return from the far side of the Moon.

|| China

||3 June, 25 June 2024

||Earth

||Falcon 9

||Most consecutive launch successes of a single type of rocket: 365.

|| USA

||14 January 2017 – 8 July 2024

||Earth

||Falcon 9

||Most consecutive landing successes of a single type of rocket stage: 267.

|| USA

||4 March 2021 – 20 August 2024

|Earth

|Falcon 9 (B1067)

||Most vertical landings of a single orbital rocket stage: 33.

| USA

||3 June 2021 – 22  February 2026

||Earth

||Falcon 9 (B1088)

||Shortest time between two flights of the same orbital rocket stage: 9 days, 3 hours, 49 minutes

|| USA

||12 March 2025 - 21 March 2025

||Sun

||Parker Solar Probe

|| Highest velocity of a spacecraft relative to the Sun: 191.7 km/s (690,000 km/h; 430,000 mph).

Closest approach to the Sun: distance of 0.041 AU (6,000,000 kilometres; 3,800,000 mi). This makes the probe the fastest object in the Solar System apart from comets (overtaking asteroid 2005 HC4).

List of spaceflight records

First independent suborbital and orbital human spaceflight by country

Most spaceflights

Most launches from Earth

Most orbital launches overall

Ten longest human spaceflights

Longest time on the lunar surface

Speed and altitude records

Fastest

Highest altitude for crewed non-lunar mission

Age records

Earliest-born to reach space

Suborbital flight

Orbital spaceflight

Youngest

Suborbital flight

Orbital spaceflight

Spacewalk

Youngest

Oldest

Spacewalk records

Most spacewalks (number and duration)

Most spacewalks during a single mission

Longest spacewalks

Greatest distance from a spacecraft during a spacewalk

Animal records

First animals in space

First animal in orbit

First Hominidae in space

Longest canine single flight

First animals beyond low Earth orbit

See also

Notes

References

External links