Launches
ON RECORD28MISSIONS
27 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1964 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
October 28 in spaceflight
28 launches flew on October 28, the earliest of them in 1964, and 27 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 28. 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 1971.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on October 28
1971
Prospero (flight spare pictured), the first British satellite launched on a British rocket, lifted off from Launch Area 5B in Woomera, South Australia.
Prospero (spacecraft) ↗2009
NASA successfully launches the Ares I-X mission, the only rocket launch for its short-lived Constellation program.
NASA ↗2014
A rocket carrying NASA's Cygnus CRS Orb-3 resupply mission to the International Space Station explodes seconds after taking off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.
Cygnus Orb-3 ↗
Launches on October 28Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
28 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-21SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 4-31SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-18 (79P)RFSASUCCESS
- 2020Electron | In Focus (Rideshare)RLSUCCESS
- 2014Antares 130 | Cygnus CRS Orb-3 (S.S. Deke Slayton)OSCFAILURE
- 2011Delta II 7920-10C | NPPULASUCCESS
- 2010Ariane 5 ECA | Eutelsat W3B & BSAT-3bASASUCCESS
- 2010SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise GF02VGSUCCESS
- 2006Long March 3B | Xinnuo 2CASCSUCCESS
- 1998Ariane 44L | Afristar & GE 5ASASUCCESS
- 1993Proton | Gorizont 28KhSCSUCCESS
- 1992Ariane 42P | Galaxy 7ASASUCCESS
- 1988Ariane 2 | TDF 1ASASUCCESS
- 1987Proton | US-KS 4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 66CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-2 10CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Delta 3924 | Satcom 5USAFSUCCESS
- 1977Kosmos-3M | Zaliv 24CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Scout D-1 | Transat O-11USAFSUCCESS
- 1977Molniya-M | Molniya-3 18LCCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Proton | Luna-23CCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 19 (33L)CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Black Arrow | ProsperoRoyal Aircraft EstablishmentSUCCESS
- 1967R-36O 8K69 | OGCh 16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Scout B | OV3-2USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4A 26USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Voskhod | Zenit-4 14CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Vostok 8A92 | Zenit-2 24CCCPSUCCESS
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.
- 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.
- 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.