space vehicle

A space vehicle is a rocket-powered vehicle used to transport unmanned satellites or humans between the Earth's surface and outer space. The earliest space vehicles, starting in 1957, consisted of expendable launch systems carrying spacecraft payloads (satellites or human-bearing space capsules) which were relatively small portions of the total vehicle size and mass. The single or multistage rocket without the payload is referred to as a launch vehicle. Although reusable launch systems have been envisioned since the late 1960s, and are still under development today, most space vehicles in production use are expendable systems.