O desenvolvimento histórico dos veículos espaciais: do Sputnik aos meios de transporte espaciais

Autor / Editor: Eren Yalçın•12 October 2026

✓ Verificado editorialmente

The first spacecraft was the German V-2 rocket, launched in June 1944 from Peenemünde, East Prussia (now in Germany). Although other flights reached higher altitudes, the V-2 rocket tests in the 1940s reached altitudes above 100 km, which is considered by the International Aviation Federation to be the beginning of spaceflight, and is known as the Karman line.

The second human spaceflight vehicle was named Freedom 7 and carried American astronaut Alan Shepard to an altitude of about 187 km during a suborbital spaceflight in 1961. Five more manned spaceflight missions were carried out using the Mercury spacecraft.