Human-Rated Rockets
Launch vehicles certified to carry crews to space.
- Titan II GLVLaunch vehicle
The human-rated Titan II Gemini Launch Vehicle, adapted from an ICBM to carry the two-person Gemini spacecraft into orbit.
ClassMedium-liftFirst flight1964StatusRetired - Saturn IBLaunch vehicle
A NASA heavy-lift launch vehicle used for early Apollo Earth-orbit tests, the Skylab crews, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project.
ClassHeavy-liftFirst flight1966StatusRetired - SoyuzLaunch vehicle
A long-serving family of Russian expendable rockets that has carried crews and cargo to orbit for over five decades.
ClassMedium-liftFirst flight1966StatusActive - Saturn VLaunch vehicle
A NASA super heavy-lift launch vehicle that carried every crewed Apollo mission to the Moon and launched the Skylab station.
ClassSuper heavy-liftFirst flight1967LEO140,000 kgStatusRetired - Space ShuttleLaunch vehicle
NASA's partially reusable crewed launch system — a winged orbiter with an external tank and two solid rocket boosters — that flew 135 missions building the ISS and servicing Hubble.
ClassHeavy-liftFirst flight1981LEO27,500 kgStatusRetired - Long March 2FLaunch vehicle
China's only human-rated launch vehicle, which carries the Shenzhou spacecraft with crews to the Tiangong space station.
ClassMedium-liftFirst flight1999LEO8,400 kgStatusActive - Falcon 9Launch vehicle
A partially reusable two-stage orbital rocket by SpaceX, the most-flown vehicle in the world with a reusable first stage.
ClassMedium-liftFirst flight2010LEO22,800 kgStatusActive - New ShepardLaunch vehicle
Blue Origin's fully reusable suborbital vehicle for research payloads and crewed flights above the Kármán line; it lands its booster propulsively.
ClassSuborbitalFirst flight2015StatusActive - Space Launch System (SLS)Launch vehicle
NASA's super heavy-lift rocket for the Artemis program, which launched the uncrewed Artemis I around the Moon in 2022.
ClassSuper heavy-liftFirst flight2022LEO95,000 kgStatusActive