Launches
ON RECORD30MISSIONS
27 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1966 and the latest in 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
September 16 in spaceflight
30 launches flew on September 16, the earliest of them in 1966, and 27 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on September 16. 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 1822.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on September 16
1822
French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in a "note" read to the Academy of Sciences, reports a direct refraction experiment verifying David Brewster's hypothesis that photoelasticity (as it is now known) is stress-induced birefringence.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel ↗1961
Pakistan establishes its Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission with Abdus Salam as its head.
SUPARCO ↗1996
Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-79 to dock with the Russian space station Mir.
Space Shuttle Atlantis ↗2021
Inspiration4, the first private orbital crewed spaceflight, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center.
Inspiration4 ↗
Launches on September 16Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
30 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Soyuz 2.1b | Progress MS-35 (96P)RFSASUCCESS
- 2025Long March 2C/YZ-1S | 4 x SatNet test satellitesCASCSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-16SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Hapith I | Test FlightTiSPACEFAILURE
- 2021Falcon 9 Block 5 | Inspiration4SpXSUCCESS
- 2018PSLV-CA | SSTL-S1 & NovaSAR-SISROSUCCESS
- 2016Vega | PerúSAT-1 / SkySat 4-7ASASUCCESS
- 2003Kaituozhe-1 | Hangtian Tsinghua 1-02CASCFAILURE
- 1998Ariane 44LP | PAS 7ASASUCCESS
- 1996Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-79USASUCCESS
- 1993Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 14RFSASUCCESS
- 1988H-1 | Sakura 3BMHISUCCESS
- 1988Proton | Uragan 29 to 31CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Scout G-1 | Transit-O 27,29USAFSUCCESS
- 1987Proton | Uragan 20 to 22CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Ariane 3 | Aussat A3 & ECS 4ASASUCCESS
- 1986Proton | Uragan 14 to 16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Proton-K/DM | EkranCCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Tsiklon-3 | Tselina-D 38CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Mu-3H | JikikenISASSUCCESS
- 1977Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 5CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Tsiklon-2 | US-A 14CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 50CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4M 42CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-I 9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Voskhod | Zenit-4 48CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Voskhod | Zenit-2 53CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | KH-7 32USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Vostok 8A92 | Zenit-2 41CCCPFAILURE
- 1966Thor Burner 2 | DSAP-4A F1USAFSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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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.