Launches
ON RECORD3MISSIONS
2 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1963 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 4 in spaceflight
3 launches flew on January 4, the earliest of them in 1963, and 2 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 4. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1958.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on January 4
1958
Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, falls to Earth from orbit.
Sputnik 1 ↗2004
Spirit (artist's impression depicted), the first of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, successfully landed on Mars.
Spirit (rover) ↗
Launches on January 4Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
3 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-88SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Thuraya 4-NGSSpXSUCCESS
- 1963Molniya 8K78 | Luna-4cCCCPFAILURE
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
SPONSORED
Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links doesn't cost you anything extra.
- VIEW
LISTING
Cosmos, by Carl Sagan
Sagan's tour of the universe and how we came to understand it. It keeps the science in.
- VIEW
LISTING
Pale Blue Dot, by Carl Sagan
Sagan's case for people leaving Earth one day, and an honest look at how hard that would be.
- VIEW
LISTING
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
A science-fiction novel from the author of The Martian, built around solving one engineering problem after another.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search. It isn't a pick of one product.
LINKS AMAZON.COM
Sources and licences
Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images come only from Wikimedia Commons, which doesn't accept non-free content. Each thumbnail links to its file page, which lists its licence and author.
Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. Many of them belong to the photographer or a partner agency, so we only show the ones credited to NASA alone.