Launches
ON RECORD28MISSIONS
25 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
August 10 in spaceflight
28 launches flew on August 10, the earliest of them in 1960, and 25 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on August 10. Below are NASA's Astronomy Pictures of the Day for August 10, from 1 different years.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1844.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED1IMAGE
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 10, in the years it credits only NASA. We don't show pictures that belong to a photographer or a partner agency.
Published on August 10
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day for this date, in the years it credits only NASA.
2021
Fire in Space
What does fire look like in space? In the gravity on Earth, heated air rises and expands, causing flames to be teardrop shaped. In the microgravity of the air-filled International Space Station ( ISS ), however, flames are spheres. Fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and space flames meet new oxygen molecules when they float by randomly from all directions -- creating the enveloping sphere. In the featured image taken in the ISS's Combustion Integration Rack, a spherical flame envelopes clusters of hot glowing soot. Without oxygen, say in the vacuum of empty space, a fire would go out immediately. The many chemical reactions involved with fire are complex, and testing them in microgravity is helping humanity not only to better understand fire -- but how to put out fire, too.
NASA · public domain
What happened on August 10
1844
From measurements of its motion, German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel deduced that Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, had an unseen companion.
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel ↗2001
Space Shuttle program: The Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-105 to the International Space Station, carrying the astronauts of Expedition 3 to replace the crew of Expedition 2.
Space Shuttle program ↗
Launches on August 10Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
28 launches
ONLINE
- 2026H3-22 | Michibiki 7 (QZS-7)MHISUCCESS
- 2026Long March 7A | ChinaSat 4BCASCFAILURE
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 8-3SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Luna 25RFSASUCCESS
- 2023SpaceShipTwo | Galactic 02VGSUCCESS
- 2023Ceres-1 | 7 satellitesGESUCCESS
- 2022Long March 6 | Jilin-1 High Resolution 03D-09, 35 to 43 & Infrared A01 to 06CASCSUCCESS
- 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 4-26SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Antares 230+ | Cygnus CRS-2 NG-16 (S.S. Ellison Onizuka)NGSSSUCCESS
- 2001Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-105USASUCCESS
- 1994Ariane 44LP | Brasilsat B1 & Türksat 1BASASUCCESS
- 1993Soyuz U | Progress M-19RFSASUCCESS
- 1993Molniya-M | US-K 74PRSCSUCCESS
- 1992Ariane 42P | Topex-Poseidon, Kitsat 1 & S80/TASASUCCESS
- 1990Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 78CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 61CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Proton | Uragan 2 &3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Soyuz U | Yantar-4K1 10CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981N-2 | Himawari 2NASDASUCCESS
- 1979SLV-3 | Rohini 1AISROFAILURE
- 1979Delta 2914 | Westar 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1977Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 3CCCPFAILURE
- 1970Kosmos 11K63 | DS-U2-MG 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Atlas SLV-3C Centaur | ATS 4USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | Lunar Orbiter IUSAFSUCCESS
- 1965X-15 | Flight 143USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Scout B | SEVNASASUCCESS
- 1960Thor Agena A | Discoverer 13USAFSUCCESS
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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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.