Launches
ON RECORD18MISSIONS
17 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1962 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
April 6 in spaceflight
18 launches flew on April 6, the earliest of them in 1962, and 17 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on April 6. 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 April 6
1965
Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
Intelsat I ↗2026
During the Artemis II mission, the Orion made its closest approach to the far side of the Moon and reached its greatest distance from Earth .
Artemis II ↗
Launches on April 6Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
18 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-72SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Long March 4C | Gaofen-3 03CASCSUCCESS
- 1997Soyuz U | Progress M-34RFSASUCCESS
- 1993Molniya-M | US-K 73PRSCSUCCESS
- 1990Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 345-352CCCPSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz-U-PVB | Zenit-8 79CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Space Shuttle Challenger OV-099 | STS-41-CLSOCSUCCESS
- 1983Kosmos-3M | Taifun-1 15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 87CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Kosmos-3M | Tselina-O 31CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | Pioneer 11USAFSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-2M 27CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Atlas F | OV1-13 & 14USAFSUCCESS
- 1967Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | ATS 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Voskhod | Zenit-4 17CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Thor Delta D | Early BirdUSAFSUCCESS
- 1963Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-P1 2CCCPFAILURE
- 1962Kosmos-2I 63S1 | 1MS 1CCCPSUCCESS
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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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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.