Launches
ON RECORD13MISSIONS
11 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
2001 · 25 years ago today
Mir comes down
Mir was deorbited into the South Pacific after fifteen years in service.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
March 23 in spaceflight
13 launches flew on March 23, the earliest of them in 1960, and 11 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on March 23. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1965.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on March 23
1965
NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States' first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
NASA ↗2001
The Russian space agency deorbited the space station Mir, causing it to reenter the Earth's atmosphere and break up over the Pacific Ocean.
Roscosmos ↗2001
The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.
Mir ↗
Launches on March 23Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
13 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Soyuz 2.1b | 16 x Rassvet-3RFSASUCCESS
- 2024Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-25RFSASUCCESS
- 2023Soyuz 2.1a | Kosmos 2567 (Bars-M No. 4)VKSSUCCESS
- 2023Terran 1 | Good Luck, Have Fun (Maiden Flight)RSFAILURE
- 2016Atlas V 401 | Cygnus CRS OA-6 (S.S. Rick Husband)ULASUCCESS
- 2014Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat | Glonass-M (Kosmos 2494)VKOSUCCESS
- 2012Ariane 5 ES | Edoardo Amaldi ATV (ATV-003)ASASUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 12CCCPSUCCESS
- 1988Soyuz-U2 | Progress 35CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Proton-K/D-1 | AstronCCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Thor Delta E1 | INTELSAT II F-3USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Titan II GLV | Gemini IIINASASUCCESS
- 1960Juno II | NASA S-46NASAFAILURE
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.