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A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine that has been built to go through space. Spacecraft are a form of artificial satellite used for a number of functions, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and passenger and freight transportation. Except for single-stage-to-orbit rockets, all spacecraft require a launch vehicle to get into space (carrier rocket).

A sub-orbital spaceflight occurs when a spacecraft enters space and then returns to Earth without gaining enough energy or velocity to complete a full orbit of the Earth. Closed orbits around the Earth or other celestial bodies are used for orbital spaceflights. Human spacecraft have people on board as crew or guests from the beginning or just in orbit (space stations), whereas robotic spacecraft function either independently or telerobotically.

Space probes are robotic spacecraft that aid scientific study. Artificial satellites are robotic spacecraft that remain in orbit around a planet. Only a few interstellar probes, including as Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons, are now on interstellar paths.

Orbital spacecraft may or may not be recoverable. The most of them aren’t. Non-winged space capsules and winged spaceplanes are two types of recoverable spacecraft that may reenter Earth. Reusable spacecraft (such as the SpaceX Dragon and the Space Shuttle orbiters) and expendable spacecraft (such as the SpaceX Dragon and the Space Shuttle orbiters) are both possible (like the Soyuz). In recent years, many space organizations have shifted their focus to reusable spacecraft.

Only a few countries have the technology for orbital launches: Russia (RSA or “Roscosmos”), the United States (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) member states, Japan (JAXA), China (CNSA), India (ISRO), Taiwan (National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan National Space Organization (NSPO), Israel (ISA), Iran (ISA), and North Korea (North Korean Space Agency) (NADA). In addition, outside of government organizations, numerous commercial businesses have created or are developing orbital launch technologies. SpaceX and Blue Origin are two of the most well-known instances of such businesses.

When a German V-2 rocket achieved a height of 189 kilometers in June 1944 in Peenemünde, Germany, it became the first spacecraft. The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched in 1957. On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit (LEO). While the launch was a single event, it heralded the beginning of the Space Age in terms of political, military, technical, and scientific advances. Sputnik 1 was a technological first, but it also helped to determine the density of the upper air layer by monitoring the satellite’s orbital variations. It also gave information on the spread of radio signals in the ionosphere.

The first possibility for meteoroid detection came from pressurized nitrogen in the satellite’s false body. During the International Geophysical Year, Sputnik 1 was launched from Site No.1/5, in the Kazakh SSR’s 5th Tyuratam range (now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The satellite flew at a speed of 29,000 kilometers per hour (18,000 miles per hour) and completed an orbit in 96.2 minutes, emitting radio signals at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz.

While Sputnik 1 was the first man-made object to circle the Earth, other man-made objects had previously achieved a height of 100 kilometers, which the international organization Fédération Aéronautique Internationale considers to be a spaceflight. The Kármán line denotes this height. Several test flights of the V-2 rocket occurred in the 1940s, some of which reached heights of over 100 kilometers.

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