Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
13 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1958 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1958 · 68 years ago today
Explorer 1, the first American satellite
Explorer 1 reached orbit carrying a Geiger counter that found the radiation belts now named for James Van Allen.
read more2003 · 23 years ago today
Columbia
Columbia broke up over Texas during reentry, killing all seven aboard, sixteen days after a foam strike damaged its wing.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
February 1 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on February 1, the earliest of them in 1958, and 13 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on February 1. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD1ENTRY
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 2003.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on February 1
2003
All seven crew members aboard Space Shuttle Columbia were killed when the orbiter disintegrated over Texas during reentry.
Space Shuttle Columbia ↗
Launches on February 1Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-4SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Hyperbola-1 | Unknowni-SpaceFAILURE
- 2018Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat-M | Kanopus-V No.3 & Kanopus-V No.4RFSASUCCESS
- 2016Long March 3C/YZ-1 | Beidou M3-SCASCSUCCESS
- 2015Proton-M Briz-M | Inmarsat-5 F2ILSSUCCESS
- 2015H-IIA 202 | IGS Radar SpareMHISUCCESS
- 2013Zenit 3SL | Intelsat-27SLFAILURE
- 2011Rokot/Briz-KM | Geo-IK-2 No.11L (Kosmos 2470)VKSFAILURE
- 2000Soyuz U | Progress M1-1RFSASUCCESS
- 1996Atlas IIAS | Palapa C1LMTSUCCESS
- 1987Tsiklon-2 | Plasma-A 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Molniya-M | US-K 46CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Long March 3 | DFH-2A 1CASCSUCCESS
- 1985Kosmos-3M | Parus 48CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Voskhod | Zenit-2M 35CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 11CCCPFAILURE
- 1958Juno-I | Explorer 1ABMASUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
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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.