Launches
ON RECORD22MISSIONS
22 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1959 and the latest in 2026.
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October 13 in spaceflight
22 launches flew on October 13, the earliest of them in 1959, and 22 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on October 13. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD1ENTRY
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1773.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on October 13
1773
French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy (pictured), an interacting, grand design spiral galaxy located an estimated 31 million light-years away.
Charles Messier ↗
Launches on October 13Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
22 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-35SpXSUCCESS
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-25SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Starship | Flight 11SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Long March 2D | Shiyan 31CASCSUCCESS
- 2024Starship | Integrated Flight Test 5SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-22SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon Heavy | PsycheSpXSUCCESS
- 2021New Shepard | NS-18BOSUCCESS
- 2020New Shepard | NS-13BOSUCCESS
- 2017Rokot / Briz-KM | Sentinel-5PELSSUCCESS
- 2006Ariane 5 ECA | DirecTV-9S, Optus D1, LDREX-2ASASUCCESS
- 2005Ariane 5 GS | Syracuse 3A & Galaxy 15ASASUCCESS
- 2000Proton | Uragan 75 to 77KhSCSUCCESS
- 1994Proton-K/DM-2M | Ekspress-2KhSCSUCCESS
- 1988Soyuz U | Zenit-8 70CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 31CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Atlas F | Tiros-NUSAFSUCCESS
- 1978Molniya-M | Molniya-3 22LCCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 17-24CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Soyuz | Soyuz 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1961Thor DM-21 Agena-B | Discoverer 32USAFSUCCESS
- 1959Juno II | Explorer 7NASASUCCESS
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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.
- VIEW
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.