A space vehicle or spaceship is the combination of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The earliest space vehicles were expendable launch systems, consisting of a single or multistage rocket, which carried a spacecraft that was a relatively small portion of the total vehicle size and mass. An early exception to this, the Space Shuttle space vehicle, consisted of a reusable orbital vehicle carrying crew and payload, supported by an expendable external propellant tank and two reusable solid-fuel booster rockets.
