Launches
ON RECORD26MISSIONS
24 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1962 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
2020 · 6 years ago today
The first commercial crew launch
Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken flew to the station aboard a Crew Dragon, the first people launched to orbit by a private company.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
May 30 in spaceflight
26 launches flew on May 30, the earliest of them in 1962, and 24 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on May 30. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1971.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on May 30
1971
Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
Mariner program ↗2020
Crew Dragon Demo-2 became the first commercial mission to the International Space Station.
Crew Dragon Demo-2 ↗
Launches on May 30Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
26 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Long March 2D | 4 x SatNet test satellitesCASCSUCCESS
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-41SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | GPS III SV08SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Ceres-1 | 5 satellitesGESUCCESS
- 2024Long March 3B/E | Paksat MM1(R)CASCSUCCESS
- 2024Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-27 (88P)RFSASUCCESS
- 2023Chollima-1 | Malligyong-1aNADAFAILURE
- 2023Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 16CASCSUCCESS
- 2020Falcon 9 Block 5 | SpX-DM2 (Demonstration Mission 2)SpXSUCCESS
- 2019Proton-M/Briz-M | Yamal-601KhSCSUCCESS
- 2016Long March 4B | Ziyuan 3-02 & ÑuSat-1 & -2 (Fresco and Batata)CASCSUCCESS
- 1998Long March 3B | Zhongwei 1CASCSUCCESS
- 1991Soyuz-U2 | Progress M-8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1988Tsiklon-3 | Geo-IK 10CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Proton | Tselina-2 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Kosmos-3M | Tsikada 12CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Tsiklon-2 | US-P 18CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Kosmos-3M | Taifun-2 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Voskhod | Zenit-2M/NKh 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Titan IIIC | ATS 6USAFSUCCESS
- 1974Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 26CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Atlas SLV-3C Centaur | Mariner 9USAFSUCCESS
- 1968Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 14CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Scout B | ESRO 2AESROFAILURE
- 1966Atlas Centaur D | Surveyor 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1962Thor DM-21 Agena-B | KH-4 4USAFSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
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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.
- 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.
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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.