Launches
ON RECORD26MISSIONS
25 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1965 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1973 · 53 years ago today
Pioneer 10 passes Jupiter
Pioneer 10 made the first close flyby of Jupiter and survived a radiation dose that had not been expected.
read more
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 3 in spaceflight
26 launches flew on December 3, the earliest of them in 1965, and 25 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 7 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 3. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD7ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia for this date, oldest first, starting in 1904.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on December 3
1904
Himalia, Jupiter's largest irregular moon, was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in California.
Himalia (moon) ↗1904
The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.
Moons of Jupiter ↗1965
Soviet Union, Space probe of the Luna program, called Luna 8, is launched, but crashes on the Moon.
Soviet Union ↗1999
NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before it reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.
NASA ↗2005
XCOR Aerospace makes the first crewed rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California.
XCOR Aerospace ↗2014
The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid to collect rock samples.
JAXA ↗
Launches on December 3Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
26 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Zhuque-3 | Demo FlightLSSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 3B/E | TJSW-13CASCSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-31SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Chang'e | Chang'e 5CNSASUCCESS
- 2020Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Gonets-M30, Gonets-M31, Gonets-M32VKSSUCCESS
- 2018Falcon 9 Block 5 | Spaceflight SSO-ASpXSUCCESS
- 2018Soyuz-FG | Soyuz MS-11RFSASUCCESS
- 2017Long March 2D | LKW-1 (Land Survey Satellite-1)CASCSUCCESS
- 2016SpaceShipTwo | VSS Unity GF01VGSUCCESS
- 2015Vega | LISA PathfinderASASUCCESS
- 2014H-IIA 202 | Hayabusa-2MHISUCCESS
- 2013Falcon 9 v1.1 | SES-8SpXSUCCESS
- 2012Zenit 3SL | Eutelsat 70BSLSUCCESS
- 1999Ariane 40 | Helios 1BASASUCCESS
- 1985Soyuz U | Zenit-8 25CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 70CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Tsiklon-3 | Tselina-D 32CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Voskhod | Zenit-2M 63CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Tsiklon-2 | I2P 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 24CCCPFAILURE
- 1970Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 4CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Voskhod | Zenit-2M 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 17CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Voskhod | Zenit-4 37CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Voskhod | Zenit-4 25CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Molniya 8K78 | Luna-8CCCPSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
SPONSORED
Astronomy and spaceflight books for a general reader. No textbooks.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links doesn't cost you anything extra.
- 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.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search. It isn't a pick of one product.
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.