Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
18 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1967 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1781 · 245 years ago today
Uranus, the first new planet
William Herschel found a disc where a star should have been and doubled the known size of the solar system.
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March 13 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on March 13, the earliest of them in 1967, and 18 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on March 13. 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 1781.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on March 13
1781
William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus from the garden of his house in Bath, England, initially considering it to be a comet.
William Herschel ↗1989
Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-29 carrying the TDRS-4 satellite.
Space Shuttle Discovery ↗
Launches on March 13Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-31SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 12-21SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 2C/YZ-1S | DRO-A/BCASCPARTIAL
- 2024KAIROS | Maiden FlightSpace OneFAILURE
- 2023Long March 2C | Horus 2CASCSUCCESS
- 2021Long March 4C | Yaogan-31-04CASCSUCCESS
- 2016Soyuz 2.1b | Resurs-P No.3RFSASUCCESS
- 2015Atlas V 421 | MMSULASUCCESS
- 2008Atlas V 411 | NROL-28 (USA-200)ULASUCCESS
- 2004Atlas Agena B | MBSATLMTSUCCESS
- 1994Minotaur | STEP 0 & DARPASATOSCSUCCESS
- 1989Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-29LSOCSUCCESS
- 1987Tsiklon-3 | Strela-3 19 to 24CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Soyuz-U2 | Soyuz T-15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Atlas E/OIS | Geosat 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1977Titan 24B | KH-8 48USAFSUCCESS
- 1971Thor Delta M6 | IMP 6USAFSUCCESS
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-2 80CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Titan IIIB | KH-8 12USAFSUCCESS
- 1967Vostok 8A92 | Zenit-2 47CCCPSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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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.
- 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.
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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.