Launches
ON RECORD19MISSIONS
17 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
May 13 in spaceflight
19 launches flew on May 13, the earliest of them in 1960, and 17 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on May 13. 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 1861.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on May 13
1861
The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.
C/1861 J1 (Tebbutt) ↗
Launches on May 13Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
19 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-83SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-4SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-58SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 4-13SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Hyperbola-1 | Jilin-1 Mofang-01A(R)i-SpaceFAILURE
- 2007Long March 3B/E | Nigcomsat 1CASCSUCCESS
- 2003Atlas V 401 | Hellas Sat 2LMTSUCCESS
- 1998Titan II SLV | NOAA 15USAFSUCCESS
- 1993Delta II | GPS IIA-11USAFSUCCESS
- 1988Soyuz-U2 | Progress 36CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz U | Zenit-8 48CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz-U | Soyuz T-5CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Soyuz U | Progress 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Atlas F/SVS | Navstar 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1976Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | Comstar 1AUSAFSUCCESS
- 1969Voskhod | Zenit-2 74CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Little Joe II | A-001NASASUCCESS
- 1960Thor Delta | EchoUSAFFAILURE
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
SPONSORED
Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links doesn't cost you anything extra.
- 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.
- VIEW
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.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search. It isn't a pick of one product.
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.