The launcher of the first humans in orbit
Vostok names both a rocket family and the spherical spacecraft it launched. The cosmonaut travelled inside the spacecraft at the top of the launcher.
The family developed from the R-7 with an upper stage. Early variants were tested from 1958, before the crewed flights that made the name famous worldwide.
On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin completed the first human orbital mission. In June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.
Selected representative missions; crew names belong to the flight shown.
Gagarin completed one circuit of Earth and became the first human in space.
Tereshkova flew for almost three days while Vostok 5 was also in orbit.
Dates follow the days reported by the source agencies, generally in local time; the UTC day can differ. Crews belong to the selected missions, not every flight in the family.
These missions established that people could survive and work briefly in the space environment.
First flight or first test of the family, including unsuccessful or suborbital attempts.
