Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
14 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1957 and the latest in 2024.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1957 · 69 years ago today
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 reached orbit and broadcast a tone that anyone with a shortwave radio could hear, opening the space age.
read more2004 · 22 years ago today
The Ansari X Prize is won
SpaceShipOne flew above a hundred kilometres twice within two weeks and took the ten-million-dollar prize.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
October 4 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on October 4, the earliest of them in 1957, and 14 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 4. 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 1957.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on October 4
Launches on October 4Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2024Vulcan VC2S | Certification Flight 2ULASUCCESS
- 2022Atlas V 531 | SES-20 & SES-21ULASUCCESS
- 2019Long March 4C | Gaofen-10RCASCSUCCESS
- 2012Delta IV M+(4,2) | GPS IIF-3 (USA-239)ULASUCCESS
- 1991Soyuz-U-PVB | Foton 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1990Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 8CCCPFAILURE
- 1984Molniya-M | US-K 38CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 153-160CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 3CCCPFAILURE
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4M 43CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Molniya-M | Luna-7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Thor Delta C | Explorer 21USAFSUCCESS
- 1960Thor DM-21 Ablestar | Courier 1BUSAFSUCCESS
- 1960Scout X-1 | ST-2NASASUCCESS
- 1959Little Joe | LJ-6NASAPARTIAL
- 1959Vostok-L 8K72 | Luna-3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1957Sputnik 8K74PS | Sputnik 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.
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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.
- 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.