Launches
ON RECORD11MISSIONS
11 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1970 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1977 · 49 years ago today
Voyager 2 launches first
Voyager 2 left Earth sixteen days before Voyager 1, on the slower path that would take it past all four outer planets.
read more1975 · 51 years ago today
Viking 1 departs
Viking 1 left Earth carrying an orbiter and a lander, on the first mission to successfully land and operate on Mars.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
August 20 in spaceflight
11 launches flew on August 20, the earliest of them in 1970, and 11 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on August 20. 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 1909.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on August 20
1909
Pluto (pictured) was photographed for the first time at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, U.S., 21 years before it was officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.
Pluto ↗
Launches on August 20Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
11 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Electron | The Lightning God Defends (iQPS Launch 8)RLSUCCESS
- 2025Soyuz 2.1b | Bion-M No. 2RFSASUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-5SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Long March 4C | Gaofen-12 04CASCSUCCESS
- 2015Ariane 5 ECA | Eutelsat 8 West B & Intelsat 34ASASUCCESS
- 1991Soyuz-U2 | Progress M-9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Tsiklon-2 | US-A 29CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Resurs-F1 17F41 19LCCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Titan IIIE | Voyager 2LMTSUCCESS
- 1975Titan IIIE | Viking 1LMTSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos-3M | DS-P1-M 1CCCPSUCCESS
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.
- 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.
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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.