Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
16 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1969 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 12 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on January 12, the earliest of them in 1969, and 16 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 12. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD4ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1986.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on January 12
1986
Space Shuttle program: Congressman and future NASA Administrator Bill Nelson lifts off from Kennedy Space Center aboard Columbia on mission STS-61-C as a payload specialist.
Space Shuttle program ↗1997
Space Shuttle program: Atlantis launches from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-81 to the Russian space station Mir, carrying astronaut Jerry M. Linenger for a four-month stay on board the station, replacing astronaut John E. Blaha.
Space Shuttle Atlantis ↗2007
Comet McNaught (pictured) reached perihelion, becoming the brightest comet in over 40 years, with an apparent magnitude of −5.5.
Comet McNaught ↗
Launches on January 12Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-97SpXSUCCESS
- 2026PSLV-DL | EOS-N1 and othersISROFAILURE
- 2024H-IIA 202 | IGS Optical 8MHISUCCESS
- 2023Long March 2C | APStar 6ECASCSUCCESS
- 2018Delta IV M+(5,2) | NROL-47ULASUCCESS
- 2018PSLV XL | Cartosat-2F (Cartosat-2S4)ISROSUCCESS
- 2005Delta II | Deep Impact (DIF)USAFSUCCESS
- 1997Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-81USASUCCESS
- 1996Ariane 44L | PAS 3R & MEASAT 1ASASUCCESS
- 1993Kosmos-3M | Tsikada 19NPSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz U | Resurs-F2 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102 | STS-61-CLSOCSUCCESS
- 1983Kosmos-3M | Parus 36CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Zenit-4MT 22CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4M 30CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Voskhod | Zenit-4M 10CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Voskhod | Zenit-2 70CCCPSUCCESS
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- 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.
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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.