Launches
ON RECORD25MISSIONS
24 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1962 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1926 · 100 years ago today
The first liquid-fuel rocket
Robert Goddard's gasoline and liquid oxygen rocket flew for two and a half seconds from a field in Auburn, Massachusetts.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
March 16 in spaceflight
25 launches flew on March 16, the earliest of them in 1962, and 24 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on March 16. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD2ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1926.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on March 16
1926
History of rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
Rocket ↗1966
Launch of Gemini 8 with astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott. It would perform the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit.
Gemini 8 ↗
Launches on March 16Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
25 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Kuaizhou 11 | 8 satellitesEPSUCCESS
- 2025Angara 1.2 | 3 x Rodnik (Kosmos 2585, 2586, 2587)VKSSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-44SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Electron | Stronger Together (Capella 9-10)RLSUCCESS
- 2020Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Glonass-M No. 60 (Kosmos 2545)VKSSUCCESS
- 2020Long March 7A | TJS-6 (Maiden Flight)CASCFAILURE
- 2019Delta IV M+(5,4) | WGS-10ULASUCCESS
- 2017Falcon 9 Full Thrust | Echostar 23SpXSUCCESS
- 1998Atlas II | UHF F/O F8LMTSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz-U2 | Progress 41CCCPSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz-U-PVB | Zenit-8 78CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 60CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Proton-K/DM | EkranCCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Molniya-M | Molniya-1K 56CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Soyuz-U | Zenit-6U 74CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Titan IIIC | DSP 9USAFSUCCESS
- 1979Titan IIID | KH-9 15USAFSUCCESS
- 1978Titan IIID | KH-9 14USAFSUCCESS
- 1976Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Thor Burner 2A | DMSP-5B F5USAFSUCCESS
- 1968Voskhod | Zenit-4 39CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-I 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Titan II GLV | Gemini VIIINASASUCCESS
- 1966Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | GATV 8USAFSUCCESS
- 1962Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-2 1CCCPSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
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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.