Launches
ON RECORD21MISSIONS
20 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1961 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
2012 · 14 years ago today
Curiosity and the sky crane
Curiosity was lowered onto Mars on cables from a hovering descent stage, a landing method never flown before.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
August 6 in spaceflight
21 launches flew on August 6, the earliest of them in 1961, and 20 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on August 6. 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 1996.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on August 6
1996
Researchers announced that the meteorite ALH84001 (pictured), discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica, may contain evidence of life on Mars, but further tests were inconclusive.
Meteorite ↗1996
NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.
NASA ↗
Launches on August 6Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
21 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Electron | The Grain Goddess Provides (iQPS Launch 7)RLSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 6A | SpaceSail Polar Group #1CASCSUCCESS
- 2020Long March 2D | Gaofen-9-04CASCSUCCESS
- 2019Falcon 9 Block 5 | Amos-17SpXSUCCESS
- 2019Ariane 5 ECA+ | Intelsat 39 & EDRS-C/HYLAS 3ASASUCCESS
- 2012Proton-M / Briz-M Enhanced | Telkom-3 & Ekspress MD2KhSCFAILURE
- 2011Ariane 5 ECA | Astra 1N & BSAT-3c/JCSAT-110RASASUCCESS
- 2001Titan 402B IUS | DSP 21USAFSUCCESS
- 2000Soyuz U | Progress M1-3RFSASUCCESS
- 1992Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 84PRSCSUCCESS
- 1986Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 5CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Soyuz U | Zenit-8 5CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 217-224CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | FLTSATCOM 5USAFSUCCESS
- 1976Titan 34B | Quasar 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1974Soyuz U | Kosmos 670CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Tsiklon-2 | IS-GVM 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Titan IIIB | KH-8 15USAFSUCCESS
- 1968Atlas SLV-3A Agena D | Canyon 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1963Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-P1 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1961Vostok-K | Vostok 2CCCPSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
SPONSORED
Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links doesn't cost you anything extra.
- 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.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search. It isn't a pick of one product.
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.