Launches
ON RECORD31MISSIONS
29 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1965 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
May 20 in spaceflight
31 launches flew on May 20, the earliest of them in 1965, and 29 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on May 20. 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 1964.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on May 20
1964
Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias.
Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation ↗
Launches on May 20Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
31 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-42SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Long March 7A | ChinaSat 3BCASCSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 2D | Beijing 3CCASCSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Iridium-9 & OneWeb 19SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Long March 2C/YZ-1S | RSW-04 - 06CASCSUCCESS
- 2020H-IIB 304 | Kounotori 9 (HTV-9)MHISUCCESS
- 2018Long March 4C | Queqiao (Chang'e 4 relay satellite)CASCSUCCESS
- 2015Atlas V 501 | OTV-4 (X-37B) (USA 261) (AFSPC-5) & ULTRASat cubesat deployerULASUCCESS
- 2011Ariane 5 ECA | ST-2 & INSAT-4G/GSAT-8ASASUCCESS
- 2011Proton-M / Briz-M Enhanced | Telstar 14RILSSUCCESS
- 2010H-IIA 202 | Akatsuki (Planet-C)MHISUCCESS
- 2005Delta II | NOAA 18USAFSUCCESS
- 2004Taurus 3210 | Formosat-2OSCSUCCESS
- 2001Soyuz-FG | Progress M1-6RFSASUCCESS
- 1999Proton-K/DM-2M | Nimiq 1KhSCSUCCESS
- 1997Delta II | Thor IIUSAFSUCCESS
- 1997Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 19RFSAFAILURE
- 1995Proton | SpektrKhSCSUCCESS
- 1994Proton | Rimsat G2KhSCSUCCESS
- 1992ASLV | SROSS-CISROSUCCESS
- 1982Molniya-M | US-K 26CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Kosmos-3M | Parus 24CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | Pioneer Venus OrbiterUSAFSUCCESS
- 1976Voskhod | Zenit-2M 67CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Titan IIIC | DSCS-2 5 & 6USAFSUCCESS
- 1972Titan 24B | KH-8 35USAFFAILURE
- 1970Thorad SLV-2H Agena D | KH-4B 10USAFSUCCESS
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-4 71CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Voskhod | Zenit-4 57CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968R-36O 8K69 | OGCh 18CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Thor Burner 1 | OPS 8386USAFSUCCESS
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.