Launches
ON RECORD11MISSIONS
9 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1966 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
May 3 in spaceflight
11 launches flew on May 3, the earliest of them in 1966, and 9 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on May 3. 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 1715.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on May 3
1715
A total solar eclipse is visible across northern Europe and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within four minutes accuracy.
Solar eclipse of May 3, 1715 ↗
Launches on May 3Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
11 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | CAS500-2 & OthersSpXSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 5 | Chang'e 6CASCSUCCESS
- 2024SR75 | Maiden FlightHYISUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-55SpXSUCCESS
- 2018Long March 3B/E | APStar-6CCASCSUCCESS
- 2006Soyuz-U-PVB | Yantar-4K2M 2VKSSUCCESS
- 2000Soyuz-U-PVB | Yantar-4KS1M 9RFSASUCCESS
- 2000Atlas IIA | GOES 11LMTSUCCESS
- 1994Titan 401A Centaur | Trumpet 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1986Delta 3914 | GOES GUSAFFAILURE
- 1966Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4A 32USAFFAILURE
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
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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.