Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
17 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1968 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
March 4 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on March 4, the earliest of them in 1968, and 17 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on March 4. 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 1675.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on March 4
1675
John Flamsteed (pictured) was appointed the first Astronomer Royal by King Charles II of England.
John Flamsteed ↗1979
The space probe Voyager 1 discovered the rings of Jupiter, the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus.
Voyager 1 ↗1986
The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus.
Soviet Union ↗
Launches on March 4Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-40SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-41SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 10 (Dedicated SSO Rideshare)SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-8SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Qaem 100 | Nahid-1IRGCAFFAILURE
- 2021Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink 17SpXSUCCESS
- 2016Falcon 9 Full Thrust | SES-9SpXSUCCESS
- 2011Minotaur-C (Taurus XL) | GloryOSCFAILURE
- 2010Delta IV M+(4,2) | GOES-P (GOES 15)ULASUCCESS
- 1997Start-1.2 | ZeyaRVSN RFSUCCESS
- 1994Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102 | STS-62LSOCSUCCESS
- 1992Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 83PRSCSUCCESS
- 1982Kosmos-3M | Taifun-2 11CCCPFAILURE
- 1980Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 17CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 85CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-2M 26CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Thorad SLV-2H Agena D | KH-4B 9USAFSUCCESS
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-2 79CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Titan IIIB | KH-8 20USAFSUCCESS
- 1968Atlas SLV-3A Agena D | OGO 5USAFSUCCESS
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.
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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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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.