Launches
ON RECORD21MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1961 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1965 · 61 years ago today
The first spacewalk
Alexei Leonov left Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes and found his suit had stiffened too much to fit back through the airlock.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
March 18 in spaceflight
21 launches flew on March 18, the earliest of them in 1961, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on March 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 1899.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on March 18
1899
Phoebe, a satellite of Saturn, becomes the first to be discovered with photographs, taken in August 1898, by William Henry Pickering.
Phoebe (moon) ↗1965
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov ventured outside the Soviet spacecraft Voskhod 2, becoming the first person to walk in space.
Alexei Leonov ↗1965
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.
Astronaut ↗1980
A Vostok-2M rocket at Plesetsk Cosmodrome Site 43 explodes during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.
Vostok-2M ↗
Launches on March 18Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
21 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 12-25SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Electron | High Five (Kinéis 21-25)RLSUCCESS
- 2022Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-21RFSASUCCESS
- 2020Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink 5SpXSUCCESS
- 2016Soyuz FG | Soyuz TMA-20MRFSASUCCESS
- 2015Proton-M Briz-M | Ekspress AM7KhSCSUCCESS
- 2001Zenit | XM-2SLSUCCESS
- 1995H-II | SFU & Himawari 5JAXASUCCESS
- 1987Zenit-2 | GVM Tselina-2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Proton-K/DM | Raduga 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 65CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Kosmos-3M | DS-P1-M 4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-I 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Atlas F | OV1-17,18,19USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | KH-7 26USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Trailblazer 2 | Trailblazer PelletNASASUCCESS
- 1965Voskhod | Voskhod 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Thor MG-18 | DSAP-1 F11USAFSUCCESS
- 1964Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-MG 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1963Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-6 1USAFFAILURE
- 1961Little Joe | LJ-5ANASAPARTIAL
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
SPONSORED
Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links doesn't cost you anything extra.
- 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.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search. It isn't a pick of one product.
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.