List of spaceflight records

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. No human has traveled beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, when the Apollo program ended.

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 2025, 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

[edit]
Country Mission Crew Spacecraft Launch vehicle Date Type Notes
Soviet Union USSR[1] Vostok 1[1] Yuri Gagarin[1] Vostok 3KA[1] Vostok-K[1] 12 April 1961[1] Orbital[1]
United States USA[2] Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7)[2] Alan Shepard[2] Mercury Spacecraft No.7[2] Mercury-Redstone[2] 5 May 1961[2] Sub-orbital[2]
United States USA[3] Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7)[3] John Glenn[3] Mercury Spacecraft No.13[3] Atlas LV-3B 20 February 1962[3] Orbital[3]
Soviet Union USSR Soyuz 18A Vasily Lazarev, Oleg Makarov Soyuz 7K-T Soyuz 11A511 5 April 1975 Sub-orbital The mission was intended to be orbital, but a fault in the launch vehicle prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.
Russia Russia Soyuz TM-14 Aleksandr Viktorenko, Aleksandr Kaleri, Klaus-Dietrich Flade Soyuz-TM Soyuz-U2 17 March 1992 Orbital First Soyuz mission to occur after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
China China[4] Shenzhou 5[4] Yang Liwei[4] Shenzhou spacecraft[4] Long March 2F[4] 15 October 2003[4] Orbital[4]

Human spaceflight firsts

[edit]

Note: Some space records are disputed as a result of ambiguities surrounding the border of space. Most records follow the FAI definition of the space border which the FAI sets at an altitude of 100 km (62.14 mi). By contrast, US agencies define the border of space at 50 mi (80.47 km).

Most spaceflights

[edit]

Most launches from Earth

[edit]

Note: The six SpaceShipTwo flights surpass the U.S. definition of spaceflight (50 mi (80.47 km)), but fall short of the Kármán line (100 km (62.14 mi)), the definition used for FAI space recordkeeping.

Most orbital launches from Earth

[edit]

Most orbital launches overall

[edit]
  • 7 launches
    • John W. Young (USA[18]) launched from Earth 6 times (two Gemini, two Apollo Command Module, two Space Shuttle) and from the Moon once (Apollo Lunar Module Ascent Stage) (1965–1983)
    • Jerry L. Ross (USA[14]), Space Shuttle (1985–2002)
    • Franklin Chang Díaz (Costa Rica/USA*[14]), Space Shuttle (1986–2002)

Largest number of different spacecraft at launch (from Earth only)

[edit]
  • 3 spacecraft
Astronaut Country Spacecraft Dates
Walter Schirra  USA Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo 1962–1968
John W. Young  USA Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle 1965–1983
Soichi Noguchi  Japan Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 2005–2020
Shane Kimbrough  USA Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 2008–2021
Akihiko Hoshide  Japan Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 2008–2021
Thomas Marshburn  USA Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 2007–2021
Koichi Wakata  Japan Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 1996–2022
Peggy Whitson  USA Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 2002–2023
Michael López-Alegría  USA Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 1995–2024
Michael Barratt  USA Soyuz, Space Shuttle, and SpaceX Crew Dragon 2009–2024
Barry Wilmore  USA Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and Boeing Starliner 2009–2024
Sunita Williams  USA Space Shuttle, Soyuz, and Boeing Starliner 2006–2024

Largest number of different launch vehicles (overall)

[edit]
  • 4 launch vehicles
    • John W. Young (USA) – launched from Earth aboard a Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle, and launched from the Moon aboard the Apollo Lunar Module Ascent Stage

Largest number of different launch sites

[edit]

Note: SpaceShipTwo flights are suborbital. SpaceShipTwo flights surpass the U.S. definition of spaceflight (50 mi (80.47 km)), but fall short of the Kármán line (100 km (62.14 mi)), the FAI definition used for most space recordkeeping.

Duration records

[edit]

Total human spaceflight time by country

[edit]
Orbital space travelers (as of August 17th, 2024)
Total Human Spaceflight statistics by nation [19] [20]
Nation Total persons Total person flights Total in orbit (@ update)* Total person days*+ % of Total person days
TOTAL 623 1380 10 71792.69 -
1
 Russia
 Soviet Union
137 298 3 33176.36
0.462113317110286
 United States 367 900 4 27434.48
0.382134799218736
 ESA 42 71 - 3958.99
0.0551447650362097
 China 24 38 3 3948.45
0.0549979113528582
 Japan 14 26 - 2101.91
0.029277547825289
 Italy 8 15 - 1158.81
0.016141103068146
 Germany 12 17 - 1032.82
0.0143862044781522
 France 10 19 - 828.66
0.0115424550769106
 Canada 11 19 - 726.86
0.0101243673217765
 Netherlands 2 3 - 210.69
0.00293470380331475
 Denmark 1 2 - 208.94
0.00291032806225081
 Belgium 2 3 - 207.65
0.00289242350006456
 United Arab Emirates 2 2 - 193.82
0.0026997487436151
 United Kingdom 2 2 - 193.81
0.00269955528535269
 Sweden 2 3 - 48.39
0.000673979567504834
 Switzerland 1 4 - 42.50
0.000592011301720774
 Israel 2 2 - 33.01
0.000459743887709535
 Saudi Arabia 3 3 - 25.52
0.000355498903008707
 Turkey 1 1 - 21.65
0.000301601431100661
 Spain 1 2 - 18.78
0.000261613608260054
 Ukraine 1 1 - 15.69
0.000218549799047092
 Belarus 1 1 - 13.78
0.000191920269226049
 Bulgaria 2 2 - 11.80
0.000164342793919186
 South Korea 1 1 - 10.88
0.000151603567339341
 Malaysia 1 1 - 10.88
0.000151603567339341
 South Africa 1 1 - 9.89
0.000137790647403108
 Brazil 1 1 - 9.89
0.000137713264098143
 Kazakhstan 1 1 - 9.84
0.000137103870571545
 Afghanistan 1 1 - 8.85
0.000123290950635312
 Syria 1 1 - 7.96
0.000110890276014688
 Czechoslovakia 1 1 - 7.93
0.000110425976184899
 Austria 1 1 - 7.93
0.000110387284532416
 Poland 1 1 - 7.92
0.00011029055540121
 Slovakia 1 1 - 7.91
0.000110232517922487
 India 1 1 - 7.90
0.000110077751312557
 Hungary 1 1 - 7.86
0.000109545741090923
 Cuba 1 1 - 7.86
0.000109526395264682
 Vietnam 1 1 - 7.86
0.000109516722351561
 Mongolia 1 1 - 7.86
0.000109516722351561
 Romania 1 1 - 7.86
0.000109507049438441
 Mexico 1 1 - 6.88
9.58005315465344e-05
Astronauts currently in space:
United States Barry Eugene "Butch" Wilmore *
United States Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams *
China Xuzhe Cai
Russia Ivan Viktorovich Vagner
China Lingdong Song
Russia Aleksei Nikolaevich Ovchinin
United States Donald Roy Pettit
China Haoze Wang
United States Tyler Nicklaus "Nick" Hague
Russia Aleksandr Vladimirovich Gorbunov
Crew Vehicles currently in space:
Shenzhou-19
Soyuz MS-26
SpaceX Crew-9
Table data accurate as of 2025-01-22 05:05 UTC
* includes those in orbit at time table was updated
+TOTAL person days in orbit will not match the sum of the totals for individual nations as some individuals are dual citizens (based solely on those identified as such by spacefacts.de - see table references).

Most time in space

[edit]

The record for most time in space is held by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who has spent 1,111 days in space over five missions. He broke the record of Gennady Padalka on 4 February 2024 at 07:30:08 UTC during his fifth spaceflight aboard Soyuz MS-24/25 for a one year long-duration mission on the ISS.[21] 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.[22][23] 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.[24][25][26]

As of 22 January 2025,[27] the 50 space travelers with the most total time in space are:

Color key:

  •   Currently in space
  •   Active
  •   Retired
  •   Deceased

Ten longest human spaceflights

[edit]

Longest single flight by a woman

[edit]

NASA astronaut Christina Koch holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days), returning on February 6, 2020.[33] During Expedition 61, she surpassed NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson's 289 days from 2016-17. In third place is American astronaut Anne McClain with 204 days.[36]

Longest continuous occupation of space

[edit]

An international partnership consisting of Russia, the United States, Canada, Japan, and the member states of the European Space Agency have jointly maintained a continuous human presence in space since 31 October 2000 when Soyuz TM-31 was launched. Two days later, it docked with the International Space Station.[14][37] Since then space has been continuously occupied for 24 years, 83 days.[14]

Longest continuous occupation of a spacecraft

[edit]

The International Space Station has been continuously occupied by a Russian and US crew member since 2 November 2000 (24 years, 81 days).[14][37] It broke the record of 9 years and 358 days of the Soviet/Russian Space Station Mir on 23 October 2010.[37]

Longest solo flight

[edit]

Valery Bykovsky flew solo for 4 days, 23 hours in Vostok 5 from 14 to 19 June 1963.[38] 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

[edit]

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.[39] They performed three EVAs (extra-vehicular activity) totaling 22 hours 3 minutes, 57 seconds. As Apollo commanders were the first to leave the LM and the last to get back in, Cernan's EVA time was slightly longer.[39]

Longest time in lunar orbit

[edit]

Ronald Evans of Apollo 17 mission stayed in lunar orbit for 6 days and 4 hours (148 hours)[40] 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

[edit]

Farthest humans from Earth

[edit]

The Apollo 13 crew (Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert), while passing over the far side of the Moon at an altitude of 254 km (158 mi) from the lunar surface, were 400,171 km (248,655 mi) from Earth.[41] This record-breaking distance was reached at 00:21 UTC on 15 April 1970.[41]

Highest altitude for crewed non-lunar mission

[edit]

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 874.95 miles (1,408.10 km).[42]

Fastest

[edit]

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).[14] The record was set 26 May 1969.[14]

The record for uncrewed spacecraft is held by the Parker Solar Probe at 191.7 km/s, about 1/1600 (or 0.064%) the speed of light, relative to the Sun. This speed was first reached in December 2024.

Age records

[edit]
Wally Funk flew in July 2021
Joe Walker in 1961

Earliest-born to reach space

[edit]

Suborbital flight

[edit]

Orbital spaceflight

[edit]

Youngest

[edit]

Suborbital flight

[edit]

Orbital spaceflight

[edit]

Oldest

[edit]

Suborbital flight

[edit]

Orbital spaceflight

[edit]

Spacewalk

[edit]

Youngest

[edit]

Oldest

[edit]

Spacewalk records

[edit]

Most spacewalks (number and duration)

[edit]

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.

Most spacewalks during a single mission

[edit]

Longest spacewalks

[edit]
  • Man – Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong, 9 hours 6 minutes, during the Shenzhou 19 mission on 17 December 2024[50], 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,[51] 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 Discovery's airlock.

Greatest distance from a spacecraft during a spacewalk

[edit]
  • All-time (and while on a planetary body[52]): 7.6 kilometers[53]: 1144  (4.7 miles, 25,029 feet[54]), 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 furthest 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. Among the former untethered spacewalks, Bruce McCandless' first test of the MMU established an orbital EVA distance record from a spacecraft which remained unbroken by later untethered EVAs.[55]

Animal records

[edit]

First animals in space

[edit]

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 68 miles (109 km).[56] They were also the first animals to safely return from space.[56] 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 100 km (62 mi) and safely parachuted back to Earth. This flight preceded the first American canine space mission by two weeks.[57]: 21 

First animal in orbit

[edit]

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

[edit]

On 31 January 1961, through NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2 mission the chimpanzee Ham became the first great ape in space.[58]

Longest canine single flight

[edit]

Soviet space dogs Veterok (Ветерок, "Light Wind") and Ugolyok (Уголёк, "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

[edit]

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.[56] It had been launched by a Proton-K rocket on 14 September.[56]

Zond 5 came within 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) of the Moon and then successfully returned to Earth, the first spacecraft in history to return safely to Earth from the Moon.[56]

Notable uncrewed or non-human spaceflights

[edit]