Launches
ON RECORD25MISSIONS
25 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1958 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
March 17 in spaceflight
25 launches flew on March 17, the earliest of them in 1958, and 25 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on March 17. 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 1958.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on March 17
1958
The United States launches the first solar-powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long-term orbit.
Vanguard 1 ↗
Launches on March 17Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
25 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-46SpXSUCCESS
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-24SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Ceres-1 | 8 satellitesGESUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | SES-18 & SES-19SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 2-8SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Long March 3B/E | Gaofen 13-02CASCSUCCESS
- 2022Long March 4C | Yaogan 34-02CASCSUCCESS
- 2018Long March 2D | LKW-4 (Land Survey Satellite-4)CASCSUCCESS
- 2017H-IIA 202 | IGS Radar 5MHISUCCESS
- 2009Rokot / Briz-KM | GOCEELSSUCCESS
- 2002Rokot / Briz-KM | GRACEELSSUCCESS
- 1994Soyuz-U-PVB | Yantar-4K2 71VKSSUCCESS
- 1992Soyuz-U2 | Soyuz TM-14RFSASUCCESS
- 1988Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 72CCCPSUCCESS
- 1988Vostok 8A92M | IRS-1ACCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 55CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 34CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Kosmos-3M | Tsikada 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 86CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 75CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Titan 24B | KH-8 34USAFSUCCESS
- 1970Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 3 (14L)CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Kosmos-3M | Sfera 4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Vostok 8A92 | Zenit-2 36CCCPSUCCESS
- 1958Vanguard | VanguardUSNSUCCESS
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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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.