Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1967 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
2017 · 9 years ago today
Cassini's last orbit
Cassini was flown into Saturn's atmosphere to protect the moons it had found might be habitable, transmitting until it broke up.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
September 15 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on September 15, the earliest of them in 1967, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on September 15. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD2ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1830.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on September 15
1830
The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens; British MP William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported railway passenger fatality when he is struck and killed by the locomotive Rocket.
Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway ↗1968
The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
Soviet Union ↗
Launches on September 15Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Gravity-1 | SpaceSail Polar Group #16OrienSpaceSUCCESS
- 2026Zhuque-2E Block 2 | SpaceSail Polar Group #15LSSUCCESS
- 2026Vega-C | Sentinel-3C & FLEXAvioSUCCESS
- 2023Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-24RFSASUCCESS
- 2023Firefly Alpha | FLTA003 (VICTUS NOX)FASUCCESS
- 2022Electron | The Owl Spreads Its Wings (StriX-1)RLSUCCESS
- 2020Long March 11 | Jilin-1 High Resolution 03B 01-06 & 03C 01-03CASCSUCCESS
- 2018Delta II 7420-10 | ICESat-2ULASUCCESS
- 2016Long March 2F/G | Tiangong-2CASCSUCCESS
- 2002Kaituozhe-1 | Hangtian Tsinghua 1-01CASCFAILURE
- 1989Soyuz U | Bion 9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1988Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 41CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz U | Resurs-F1 17F40 107L 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Yantar-2K 27CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 47CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Titan 24B | KH-8 47USAFSUCCESS
- 1976Soyuz-U | Soyuz 22CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-2M 32CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969R-36O 8K69 | OGCh 21CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Thorad SLV-2G Agena D | KH-4B 1USAFSUCCESS
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.
- 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.