Launches
ON RECORD23MISSIONS
22 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1961 and the latest in 2022.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1961 · 65 years ago today
Alan Shepard flies
Alan Shepard rode Freedom 7 on a fifteen-minute suborbital arc, the first American in space.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
May 5 in spaceflight
23 launches flew on May 5, the earliest of them in 1961, and 22 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on May 5. 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 1961.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on May 5
1961
Project Mercury: American astronaut Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital spaceflight on board Freedom 7, becoming the second person to travel into outer space.
Project Mercury ↗
Launches on May 5Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
23 launches
ONLINE
- 2022Long March 2D | Jilin-1 Wideband-01C & High Resolution 03D-27 to 33CASCSUCCESS
- 2021Starship SN15 | 10 km FlightSpXSUCCESS
- 2020Long March 5B | Maiden FlightCASCSUCCESS
- 2019Electron | That's a Funny Looking Cactus (STP-27RD)RLSUCCESS
- 2018Atlas V 401 | InSight, Mars Cube One 1 & Mars Cube One 2ULASUCCESS
- 2017GSLV Mk II | SouthAsiaSat (GSAT-9)ISROSUCCESS
- 2009Delta II 7920-10C | STSS-ATRR/GMD (USA-205)ULASUCCESS
- 2005PSLV | Cartosat-1ISROSUCCESS
- 1999Delta 8930 | Orion 3USAFFAILURE
- 1997Delta II | Iridium 04 to 08USAFSUCCESS
- 1996Soyuz U | Progress M-31RFSASUCCESS
- 1990Soyuz-U2 | Progress 42CCCPSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz-U-PVB | Zenit-8 80CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz U | Zenit-8 47CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 35CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 88CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Soyuz U | Zenit-4MK 77CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 59CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 12CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Titan IIIC | DSP 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1967Scout A | Ariel 3SERCSUCCESS
- 1961Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 3NASASUCCESS
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.