Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
18 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1967 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
June 20 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on June 20, the earliest of them in 1967, and 18 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on June 20. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD4ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1943.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on June 20
1943
World War II: The Royal Air Force launches Operation Bellicose, the first shuttle bombing raid of the war. Avro Lancaster bombers damage the V-2 rocket production facilities at the Zeppelin Works while en route to an air base in Algeria.
World War II ↗1944
The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space.
MW 18014 ↗1996
Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-78 to conduct life science and microgravity research aboard the Spacelab module.
Space Shuttle Columbia ↗
Launches on June 20Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Long March 3B/E | ChinaSat 9CCASCSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Astra 1P/SES-24SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Electron | No Time Toulouse (Kinéis 1-5)RLSUCCESS
- 2023Long March 6 | Shiyan 25CASCSUCCESS
- 2019Ariane 5 ECA | Eutelsat 7C & AT&T T-16ASASUCCESS
- 2012Atlas V 401 | NROL-38 (SDS) (USA-236)ULASUCCESS
- 2011Long March 3B | Chinasat-10CASCSUCCESS
- 2008Delta II 7320 | Jason-2ULASUCCESS
- 2002Rokot / Briz-KM | Iridium 97 & 98ELSSUCCESS
- 1999Titan II SLV | QuikScatUSAFSUCCESS
- 1996Soyuz-U-PVB | Yantar-4K2 76VKSFAILURE
- 1996Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102 | STS-78LMSOSUCCESS
- 1990Proton-K/DM | Gorizont 20CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Atlas E | DMSP-5D2 F8USAFSUCCESS
- 1983Titan 34D | KH-9 18USAFSUCCESS
- 1975Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Kosmos-3M | Zaliv 13CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Thorad SLV-2G Agena D | KH-4A 47USAFSUCCESS
- 1967Titan IIIB | KH-8 6USAFSUCCESS
- 1967Voskhod | Zenit-4 31CCCPFAILURE
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.
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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.