Launches
ON RECORD22MISSIONS
18 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1964 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
2004 · 22 years ago today
Opportunity lands at Meridiani
Opportunity bounced to a stop inside a small crater on Meridiani Planum and found rock laid down in water.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 25 in spaceflight
22 launches flew on January 25, the earliest of them in 1964, and 18 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 6 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 25. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD6ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1994.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on January 25
1995
A team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII sounding rocket, which was mistaken by Russian forces for a Trident missile.
Black Brant (rocket) ↗1995
The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.
Norwegian rocket incident ↗2004
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed on Mars and rolled into Eagle crater, a small crater on the Meridiani Planum.
Mars Exploration Rover ↗2006
Three independent observing campaigns announced the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, a super-Earth 21,500 ± 3,300 light-years away from Earth near the center of the Milky Way.
OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb ↗2018
An Ariane 5 rocket is launched carrying SES-14, Al Yah 3, and NASA's Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, but the satellites end up in the wrong orbit.
Ariane 5 ↗
Launches on January 25Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
22 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-20SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Long March 4C | L-SAR 01ACASCSUCCESS
- 2018Ariane 5 ECA | Al Yah 3 & SES-14ASAPARTIAL
- 2018Long March 2C | 3 x Yaogan-30CASCSUCCESS
- 2012Soyuz-U | Progress M-14M (46P)RFSASUCCESS
- 2003Pegasus XL | Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE)OSCSUCCESS
- 2000Long March 3A | Zhongxing 22CASCSUCCESS
- 2000Ariane 42L | Galaxy 10RASASUCCESS
- 1996Proton | Gorizont 31KhSCSUCCESS
- 1995Long March 2E | Apstar 2CASCFAILURE
- 1994Titan II SLV | Clementine 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1994Tsiklon-3 | Meteor-3 6VKSSUCCESS
- 1992Soyuz-U2 | Progress M-11RFSASUCCESS
- 1990Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 50CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Kosmos-3M | Taifun-2 14CCCPFAILURE
- 1980Kosmos-3M | Parus 23CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-Priroda 2-3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 50CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Tsiklon-2A | US-AO 5CCCPFAILURE
- 1967R-36O 8K69 | OGCh 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-I 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Thor SLV-2 Agena B | Echo 2USAFSUCCESS
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.
- 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.