Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 21 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on January 21, the earliest of them in 1960, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 21. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD2ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1960.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on January 21
1960
Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia, with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, on board.
Little Joe 1B ↗2004
NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.
NASA ↗
Launches on January 21Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-8SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 13-1SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Atlas V 511 | USSF-8ULASUCCESS
- 2019Long March 11 | Jilin-1 Hyperspectral 01, 02, Xiaoxiang-1-03, Lingque-1ACASCSUCCESS
- 2018Electron | Still TestingRLSUCCESS
- 2017Atlas V 401 | SBIRS GEO Flight 3 (SBIRS GEO-4)ULASUCCESS
- 2015Atlas V 551 | MUOS-3ULASUCCESS
- 2008PSLV | TECSAR 1ISROSUCCESS
- 2000Atlas IIA | DSCS-3 B8LMTSUCCESS
- 1992Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 62VKSSUCCESS
- 1987Kosmos-3M | Strela-2M 41CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Titan 24B | KH-8 52USAFSUCCESS
- 1981Kosmos-3M | DS-P1-M 15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 74CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Titan 23B | KH-8 30USAFSUCCESS
- 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-4 68CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Atlas D | OV1-1USAFFAILURE
- 1964Thor Delta B | Relay 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1960Little Joe | LJ-1BNASASUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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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.