Launches
ON RECORD22MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1965 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
2006 · 20 years ago today
Stardust brings comet dust home
Stardust's return capsule landed in Utah carrying particles collected from the coma of comet Wild 2.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 15 in spaceflight
22 launches flew on January 15, the earliest of them in 1965, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 15. 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 1818.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on January 15
1818
A paper by David Brewster is read to the Royal Society, belatedly announcing his discovery of what we now call the biaxial class of doubly-refracting crystals. On the same day, Augustin-Jean Fresnel signs a "supplement" (submitted four days later) on reflection of polarized light.
David Brewster ↗2005
ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovers elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the Moon.
European Space Agency ↗
Launches on January 15Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
22 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Ceres-1S | Tianqi 37-40GESUCCESS
- 2026Long March 2C | AlSat 3ACASCSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Mission 1 & Hakuto-R M2 “Resilience”SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-37SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon Heavy | USSF-67SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Long March 2D | 6 x Jilin-1, Qilu-2/3 & othersCASCSUCCESS
- 2020Long March 2D | Jilin-1 Wideband 01, Tianqi-4, NuSat-7 & 8CASCSUCCESS
- 2019Simorgh | PayamISAFAILURE
- 2016Long March 3B/E | BELINTERSAT-1CASCSUCCESS
- 2013Rokot / Briz-KM | 3 x Strela-3M (Kosmos-2482, Kosmos-2483, Kosmos-2484)VKOFAILURE
- 2008Zenit | Thuraya 3SLSUCCESS
- 1995Mu-3S-II | EXPRESSISASFAILURE
- 1991Ariane 44L | Italsat 1ASASUCCESS
- 1988Tsiklon-3 | Strela-3 31 to 36CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz U | Zenit-8 42CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 20CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Tsiklon-3 | Strela-3 1 to 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Titan IIIE | Helios-BLMTSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 29CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Thor Delta M | INTELSAT III F-6USAFSUCCESS
- 1969Soyuz | Soyuz 5CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4A 16USAFSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
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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.
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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.
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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.