Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1970 and the latest in 2026.
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July 9 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on July 9, the earliest of them in 1970, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on July 9. 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 1962.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on July 9
1962
The United States conducted the Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test, the largest nuclear explosion in outer space.
Starfish Prime ↗
Launches on July 9Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-42SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Ariane 62 | Maiden FlightESASUCCESS
- 2023Long March 2C/YZ-1S | 2 x SatNet test satellitesCASCSUCCESS
- 2021Long March 6 | Zhongzi Group 02 (Ningxia-1-02)CASCSUCCESS
- 2020Long March 3B/E | APStar-6DCASCSUCCESS
- 2018Soyuz 2.1A | Progress MS-09 (70P)RFSASUCCESS
- 2018Long March 3A | Beidou-2 I7CASCSUCCESS
- 2018Long March 2C/SMA | PRSS-1 & PakTes-1ACASCSUCCESS
- 2014Angara-1.2pp | Maiden flight (Suborbital)KhSCSUCCESS
- 2012Proton-M / Briz-M Enhanced | SES-5ILSSUCCESS
- 1997Delta II | Iridium 15USAFSUCCESS
- 1996Ariane 44L | Arabsat IIA & Türksat 1CASASUCCESS
- 1992Ariane 44L | Insat 2A & Eutelsat-2 F4ASASUCCESS
- 1991Soyuz-U-PVB | Zenit-8 99CCCPSUCCESS
- 1988Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 10CCCPFAILURE
- 1987Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 32CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 22CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 193-200CCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-Priroda 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-2M 10CCCPSUCCESS
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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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.