Launches
ON RECORD26MISSIONS
26 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1970 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 2 in spaceflight
26 launches flew on December 2, the earliest of them in 1970, and 26 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 2. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD4ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1988.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on December 2
1988
Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-27, a classified mission for the United States Department of Defense.
Space Shuttle Atlantis ↗1990
Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-35, carrying the ASTRO-1 spacelab observatory.
Space Shuttle Columbia ↗1992
Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-53 for the United States Department of Defense.
Space Shuttle Discovery ↗1993
Space Shuttle program: STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
Space Shuttle program ↗
Launches on December 2Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
26 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-95SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-10SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 4-3SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Soyuz STA/Fregat | Falcon Eye 2ASASUCCESS
- 2017Soyuz-2.1b | Lotos-S1 (Kosmos-2524)VKSSUCCESS
- 2012Soyuz STA/Fregat | Pléiades-HR 1BASASUCCESS
- 2008Molniya-M | US-K 85PRSCSUCCESS
- 2003Atlas IIAS | NROL-18LMTSUCCESS
- 1997Proton-K/DM-2M | Astra 1GKhSCSUCCESS
- 1997Ariane 44P | JCSAT 1B & Equator-SASASUCCESS
- 1995Atlas IIAS | SOHOLMTSUCCESS
- 1993Space Shuttle Endeavour / OV-105 | STS-61LSOCSUCCESS
- 1992Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-53LSOCSUCCESS
- 1992Molniya 8K78M-PVB | Molniya-3 56LPRSCSUCCESS
- 1990Soyuz-U2 | Soyuz TM-11CCCPSUCCESS
- 1990Space Shuttle Columbia / OV-102 | STS-35LSOCSUCCESS
- 1988Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-27LSOCSUCCESS
- 1986Tsiklon-3 | Geo-IK 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Molniya-M | Molniya-2 16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Kosmos-3M | Tselina-O 33CCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Soyuz-U | Soyuz 16CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Molniya-M | Molniya-1 22CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Kosmos-3M | DS-U2-MTCCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Kosmos 11K63 | DS-U2-IK 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Proton | L1E 2KCCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos-3M | Ionosfernaya Stantsiya 2CCCPSUCCESS
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.
- 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.