What was the name of the first manned space vehicle?

The first manned space vehicle was Vostok 1. Launched by the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961, it carried cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on the first human orbital spaceflight.

Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth in approximately 108 minutes. Its Vostok 3KA capsule reached a maximum altitude of about 327 kilometres before beginning its descent. Gagarin returned separately from the capsule by ejecting at roughly 7 kilometres and parachuting to the ground, a detail often omitted in simplified accounts of the mission.

The spacecraft was part of the secretive Vostok programme, developed during the early Cold War space race with the United States. Engineers tested several uncrewed precursor missions before risking a human flight. Vostok 1 was designed for a single pilot and relied on ground control for much of the mission because the spacecraft's manual controls were initially locked. Gagarin's successful flight made him the first person in space and gave the Soviet Union a major early victory in space exploration.