Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
15 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
September 21 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on September 21, the earliest of them in 1960, and 15 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on September 21. 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 1968.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on September 21
1968
The Soviet Union's Zond 5 landed in the Indian Ocean, becoming the first spacecraft to safely return to Earth after travelling around the Moon.
Zond 5 ↗2003
The Galileo spacecraft is terminated by sending it into Jupiter's atmosphere.
Galileo (spacecraft) ↗
Launches on September 21Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-27SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Ceres-1 | Jilin-1 High Resolution 04BGEFAILURE
- 2022Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-22RFSASUCCESS
- 2020Long March 4B | Haiyang 2CCASCSUCCESS
- 2014Falcon 9 v1.1 | SpX CRS-4SpXSUCCESS
- 2011Ariane 5 ECA | Arabsat 5C & SES-2ASASUCCESS
- 2010Atlas V 501 | NROL-41 (USA-215)ULASUCCESS
- 2001Taurus 2110 | OrbView-4OSCFAILURE
- 2000Titan II SLV | NOAA 16USAFSUCCESS
- 1994Proton | Potok 8KhSCSUCCESS
- 1984Delta 3920/PAM | Galaxy 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1981Tsiklon-3 | Aureole 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Soyuz U | Zenit-4MT 11CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Soyuz U | Zenit-4MK 14CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 22CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Luna | Luna-16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1960Blue Scout Jr | Blue Scout D-1USAFSUCCESS
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.
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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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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.