Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
16 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1961 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 31 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on January 31, the earliest of them in 1961, and 16 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 6 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 31. 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 1862.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on January 31
1862
Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch (47 cm) telescope now located at Northwestern University.
Alvan Graham Clark ↗1958
Cold War: Space Race: The Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite, detects the Van Allen radiation belt.
Space Race ↗1961
Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, the chimpanzee Ham became the first hominid to be launched into outer space.
NASA ↗1961
Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2: The chimpanzee Ham travels into outer space.
Project Mercury ↗1966
The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
Soviet Union ↗1971
Apollo program: Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.
Apollo program ↗
Launches on January 31Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Long March 2C | AlSat 3BCASCSUCCESS
- 2024Electron | Four Of A Kind (NorthStar 1)RLSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 2-6 & ION SCV009SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | CSG-2SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Electron | Birds of a Feather (NROL-151)RLSUCCESS
- 2018Falcon 9 Full Thrust | GovSat (SES-16)SpXSUCCESS
- 2015Delta II 7320-10C | SMAP, FIREBIRD II A, FIREBIRD II B, GRIFEX, ExoCubeULASUCCESS
- 2013Atlas V 401 | TDRS-KULASUCCESS
- 1984Titan 34D Transtage | Vortex 11USAFSUCCESS
- 1979Soyuz U | Kosmos 1074CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 11CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Thor Delta L | HEOS 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1971Saturn V | Apollo 14NASASUCCESS
- 1967Scout B | OV3-5USAFFAILURE
- 1966Molniya-M | Luna-9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1961Atlas LV-3A | Samos 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1961Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 2NASASUCCESS
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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.