Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1962 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
October 3 in spaceflight
20 launches flew on October 3, the earliest of them in 1962, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 3. 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 1942.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on October 3
1962
Mercury-Atlas 8, the fifth United States crewed space mission, was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying astronaut Wally Schirra (pictured).
Mercury-Atlas 8 ↗1962
Project Mercury: US astronaut Wally Schirra, in Sigma 7, is launched from Cape Canaveral for a six-orbit flight.
Project Mercury ↗1985
The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight, carrying two DSCS-III Satellites on STS-51-J.
Space Shuttle Atlantis ↗
Launches on October 3Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-39SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Antares 230+ | Cygnus CRS-2 NG-14 (S.S. Kalpana Chawla)NGSSSUCCESS
- 1998Minotaur | NROL-8OSCSUCCESS
- 1994Soyuz-U2 | Soyuz TM-20RFSASUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 48CCCPSUCCESS
- 1988Molniya-M | US-K 58CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Molniya-M | US-K 49CCCPFAILURE
- 1985Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-51-JLSOCSUCCESS
- 1985Molniya-M | Molniya-3 38LCCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Vostok 8A92M | Resurs-O1 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 26CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Proton-K/DM | EkranCCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Progress 4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Voskhod | Zenit-2M 42CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Tsiklon-2 | US-A 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Scout B | ESRO 1A (Aurorae)ESROSUCCESS
- 1968Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Molniya 8K78 | Molniya-1 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1962Atlas LV-3B | Mercury-Atlas 8NASASUCCESS
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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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.