Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
17 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1961 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1930 · 96 years ago today
Pluto found
Clyde Tombaugh spotted a moving point of light while comparing photographic plates at Lowell Observatory.
read more2021 · 5 years ago today
Perseverance lands in Jezero
Perseverance was lowered into Jezero Crater by a rocket-powered stage that filmed the descent.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
February 18 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on February 18, the earliest of them in 1961, and 17 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on February 18. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD4ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1930.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on February 18
1977
NASA's first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, made its first test flight on top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (both pictured).
NASA ↗1977
The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747.
Space Shuttle Enterprise ↗2021
Perseverance, a Mars rover designed to explore Jezero crater on Mars, as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission, lands successfully.
Perseverance (rover) ↗
Launches on February 18Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-12SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Electron | Fasten Your Space Belts (BlackSky Gen-3 1)RLSUCCESS
- 2024Electron | On Closer Inspection (ADRAS-J)RLSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Inmarsat-6 F2SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Ariane 5 ECA+ | JCSAT-17 & GEO-KOMPSAT-2BASASUCCESS
- 2006H-IIA 2024 | Himawari-7 (MTSAT-2)JAXASUCCESS
- 2004Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 93PRSCSUCCESS
- 2000Ariane 44LP | Superbird B2ASASUCCESS
- 1998Delta II | Iridium 50, 52, 53, 54, 56USAFSUCCESS
- 1994Proton | Raduga 31KhSCSUCCESS
- 1988Soyuz U | Resurs-F1 17F40 108L 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Kosmos-3M | Parus 58CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Soyuz U | Yantar-1KFT 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Scout D-1 | SAGENASASUCCESS
- 1974Scout D-1 | San Marco 4ASISUCCESS
- 1971Voskhod | Zenit-4M 11CCCPSUCCESS
- 1961Thor DM-21 Agena-B | Discoverer 21 (MIDAS RM-2)USAFSUCCESS
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.