Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
17 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1965 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
April 17 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on April 17, the earliest of them in 1965, and 17 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on April 17. 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 1970.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on April 17
1998
Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-90, the final Spacelab mission.
Space Shuttle Columbia ↗2014
NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, the first exoplanet with a radius similar to Earth's discovered in the habitable zone of another star.
NASA ↗
Launches on April 17Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Long March 4C | Daqi-2 (AEMS)CASCSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-51SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | NROL-85SpXSUCCESS
- 2019Antares 230 | Cygnus CRS NG-11 (S.S. Roger Chaffee)NGSSSUCCESS
- 2007Dnepr | EgyptSat 1 & Saudisat 3ISCKSUCCESS
- 2000Proton-K/DM-2M | SesatKhSCSUCCESS
- 1998Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102 | STS-90USASUCCESS
- 1997Kosmos-3M | Parus 88NPSUCCESS
- 1990Soyuz U | Zenit-8 91CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Kosmos-3M | Strela-2M 38CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Titan 24B | KH-8 54USAFSUCCESS
- 1983SLV-3 | Rohini RS-D-2ISROSUCCESS
- 1980Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 38CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 8 (21L)CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Titan IIIB | KH-8 13USAFSUCCESS
- 1967Atlas Centaur D | Surveyor 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Voskhod | Zenit-4 6CCCPSUCCESS
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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.
- 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.
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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.