Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
16 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1961 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1969 · 57 years ago today
The first steps
Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and stood on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin followed nineteen minutes later.
read more2011 · 15 years ago today
The last Shuttle landing
Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Center to end the Space Shuttle programme after thirty years.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
July 21 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on July 21, the earliest of them in 1961, and 16 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on July 21. 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 1961.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on July 21
1961
Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 mission: Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).
Project Mercury ↗1969
Apollo program: At 02:56 UTC, astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the Moon, followed 19 minutes later by Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.
Apollo program ↗1983
The world's lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F).
Lowest temperature recorded on Earth ↗2011
NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
NASA ↗
Launches on July 21Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | MRV-1SpXSUCCESS
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-39SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Proton-M | MLM NaukaKhSCSUCCESS
- 2012H-IIB 304 | Kounotori 3 (HTV-3)MHISUCCESS
- 2009Kosmos-3M | Parus 98NPSUCCESS
- 2006Molniya-M | US-K 83PRSCSUCCESS
- 1994Long March 3 | APSTAR 1CASCSUCCESS
- 1988Ariane 3 | Insat 1C & ECS5ASASUCCESS
- 1982Molniya-M | Molniya-1K 55CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 241-248CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Tsiklon-2 | IS-A 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Kosmos-3M | Sfera 15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Proton | Mars-4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-4 75CCCPFAILURE
- 1969Apollo LM | Apollo 11NASASUCCESS
- 1968Proton / UR-500 K/D | Soyuz 7K-L1 No.8LCCCPFAILURE
- 1967Voskhod | Zenit-4 32CCCPFAILURE
- 1962Thor DM-21 Agena-B | KH-4 8USAFSUCCESS
- 1961Thor DM-21 Agena-B | KH-5 4USAFFAILURE
- 1961Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 4NASASUCCESS
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.
- 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.