The world's first manned spacecraft Vostok (East) was designed for space exploration. Six Vostok missions from 1961 through 1963, carried Soviet cosmonauts on successively longer flights, and each was unique space flight history.

Vostok 1 (manned by Yuri Gagarin) was the first manned spacecraft to complete a full orbit, Vostok 2 (German Titov) was the first to spend a full day in space. Vostoks 3 (Adrian Nikolayev) and 4 (Pavel Popovich) comprised the first two-spacecraft mission. Vostok 5 (Valery Bykovsky) was the first long-duration mission and Vostok 6 (Valentina Tereshkova), was the first to carry a women.