Launches
ON RECORD33MISSIONS
32 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1959 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1998 · 28 years ago today
The first piece of the station
The Zarya module launched on a Proton, the first component of the International Space Station.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
November 20 in spaceflight
33 launches flew on November 20, the earliest of them in 1959, and 32 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on November 20. 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 1998.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on November 20
1998
The first space station module component, Zarya, for the International Space Station is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Zarya (ISS module) ↗
Launches on November 20Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
33 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Electron | Follow My Speed (BlackSky Gen-3 3)RLSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 7-7SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Astra Rocket 3 | STP-27AD2ASSUCCESS
- 2021Long March 4B | Gaofen-11-03CASCSUCCESS
- 2020Electron | Return to Sender (Rideshare)RLSUCCESS
- 2015Long March 3B/E | LaoSat-1CASCSUCCESS
- 2014Long March 2D | Yaogan-24CASCSUCCESS
- 2013Long March 4C | Yaogan 19CASCSUCCESS
- 2013Minotaur I | ORS-3OSCSUCCESS
- 2012Proton-M / Briz-M Enhanced | EchoStar XVIILSSUCCESS
- 2011Long March 2D | Shiyan Weixing 4 & Chuang Xin 1CCASCSUCCESS
- 2010Minotaur IV HAPS | STP S-26OSCSUCCESS
- 2009Soyuz-U-PVB | Lotos-S 1VKSSUCCESS
- 2004Delta II | SwiftUSAFSUCCESS
- 2002Delta IV M+(4,2) | Eutelsat W5BASUCCESS
- 2000Kosmos-3M | QuickBird 1NPFAILURE
- 1998Proton | ZaryaKhSCSUCCESS
- 1994Proton | Uragan 60 to 62KhSCSUCCESS
- 1993Ariane 44LP | Solidaridad 1 & Meteosat 6ASASUCCESS
- 1992Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 67VKSSUCCESS
- 1991Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 61CCCPSUCCESS
- 1990Ariane 42P | Satcom C1 & GStar 4ASASUCCESS
- 1990Molniya 8K78M-PVB | US-K 67CCCPSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz-U2 | Progress 33CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Molniya-M | US-K 51CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Kosmos-3M | Bhaskara 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Delta 3910/PAM | Satcom 3RUSAFSUCCESS
- 1975Delta 2910 | AE-EUSAFSUCCESS
- 1974Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 73CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 66CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Kosmos-3M | Sfera 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Apollo LM | Apollo 12NASASUCCESS
- 1959Thor Agena A | Discoverer 8USAFSUCCESS
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.