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May 22 in spaceflight

29 launches flew on May 22, the earliest of them in 1963, and 27 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on May 22. Pick another date to see what happened on it.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

29MISSIONS

27 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1963 and the latest in 2026.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

2ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1969.

Pictures from this date

NONE

0IMAGES

There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.

What happened on May 22

  1. 1969

    Apollo 10's Lunar Module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the Moon's surface.

    Apollo 10 ↗
  2. 2012

    SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 launches a Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket in the first commercial flight to the International Space Station.

    SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 ↗

Launches on May 22Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.

29 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2026Starship | Flight 12SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2026Electron | Viva La StriX (StriX Launch 9)RLSUCCESS
  3. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | NROL-146SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2021SpaceShipTwo | VSS Unity VF-03VGSUCCESS
  5. 2020Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat | EKS 4 (Tundra 4) (Kosmos 2546)VKSSUCCESS
  6. 2019Long March 4C | Yaogan-33CASCFAILURE
  7. 2019PSLV-CA | RISAT-2BISROSUCCESS
  8. 2018Falcon 9 Block 4 | Iridium-6 & GRACE-FOSpXSUCCESS
  9. 2014Atlas V 401 | NROL-33 (Quasar)ULASUCCESS
  10. 2012Falcon 9 v1.0 | SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2SpXSUCCESS
  11. 2005Proton-M Briz-M | DirecTV-8KhSCSUCCESS
  12. 1999Titan 404B | NROL-9USAFSUCCESS
  13. 1994Soyuz U | Progress M-23RFSASUCCESS
  14. 1993Soyuz-U2 | Progress M-18RFSASUCCESS
  15. 1990Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 7CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1985Soyuz U | Resurs-F1 17F41 52LCCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1984Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 25CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1981Delta 3914 | GOES 5USAFSUCCESS
  19. 1981Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 17CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1979Proton | TKS-VA 9 & 10CCCPSUCCESS
  21. 1976Scout B-1 | WidebandUSAFSUCCESS
  22. 1975Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | INTELSAT IV F1USAFSUCCESS
  23. 1971Kosmos-3M | Zaliv 8CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1970Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 32CCCPFAILURE
  25. 1969Thor Delta M | INTELSAT III F-4USAFSUCCESS
  26. 1967Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | KH-7 37USAFSUCCESS
  27. 1967Voskhod | Zenit-4 29CCCPSUCCESS
  28. 1965Atlas D | FIRE 2USAFSUCCESS
  29. 1963Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-A1 2CCCPSUCCESS

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.

    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.

    VIEW

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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.

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