Spacecraft

People often mix up rockets and spacecraft. A rocket (a launch vehicle) pushes things from the ground up to space. A spacecraft rides on top of it and does its work in space. A rocket finishes its job in a few minutes and falls away, but a spacecraft stays in space for days or even years.

A crewed spacecraft keeps the air to breathe and the temperature right, and it is built to survive the heat on the way back. A cargo ship that carries only freight brings food and experiment equipment to a space station. The part that returns to Earth is often called a capsule, and it opens parachutes and lands in the sea or on land.

Compare it to a train. The rocket is the locomotive at the front that pulls, and the spacecraft is the passenger car. The locomotive is dropped along the way, and only the passenger car goes on to the destination.

A successful rocket launch and a successful spacecraft docking are different milestones. Telling them apart lets you read exactly which company built what and how far it got.