Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
16 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1964 and the latest in 2026.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1959 · 67 years ago today
The far side of the Moon
Luna 3 photographed the hemisphere of the Moon that never faces Earth and developed the film on board.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
October 7 in spaceflight
17 launches flew on October 7, the earliest of them in 1964, and 16 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 7. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1958.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on October 7
1959
The Soviet probe Luna 3 transmits the first-ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.
Luna 3 ↗2002
The Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on STS-112 to continue assembly of the International Space Station.
Space Shuttle Atlantis ↗
Launches on October 7Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Nuri | NeonSat-2 to 6KARISUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-59SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | HeraSpXSUCCESS
- 2023Miura 1 | SN1 Test FlightPLD SpaceSUCCESS
- 2022Electron | It Argos Up From Here (Argos-4)RLSUCCESS
- 2022Long March 11 | CentiSpace-1 S5 & S6CASCSUCCESS
- 2015Long March 2D | Jilin-1CASCSUCCESS
- 2014SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise GF30VGSUCCESS
- 2014H-IIA 202 | Himawari-8MHISUCCESS
- 2011Long March 3B/E | Eutelsat W3CCASCSUCCESS
- 2010Soyuz-FG | Soyuz TMA-01MRFSASUCCESS
- 2002Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-112USASUCCESS
- 1999Delta II | GPS IIR-3USAFSUCCESS
- 1978Atlas F/SVS | Navstar 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 23CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Voskhod | Zenit-4 49CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | KH-7 12USAFFAILURE
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.
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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.