Launches
ON RECORD24MISSIONS
24 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1972 · 54 years ago today
Apollo 17, the last one
Apollo 17 launched at night on the final crewed mission to the Moon, carrying the geologist Harrison Schmitt.
read more1972 · 54 years ago today
The Blue Marble
The crew of Apollo 17 photographed the whole sunlit face of the Earth on the way out, one of the most reproduced images ever taken.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 7 in spaceflight
24 launches flew on December 7, the earliest of them in 1960, and 24 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 7. 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 1972.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on December 7
1972
Apollo 17, the last Apollo Moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
Apollo 17 ↗1995
The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
Galileo (spacecraft) ↗2015
The JAXA space probe Akatsuki entered into orbit around Venus to study the planet's atmosphere, five years after its first attempt failed.
JAXA ↗
Launches on December 7Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
24 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-15SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-33SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Kuaizhou 11 | Xingyun VDESEPSUCCESS
- 2021Atlas V 551 | STP-3ULASUCCESS
- 2021Ceres-1 | Golden Bauhinia 1-03 & othersGESUCCESS
- 2019Kuaizhou 1A | HEAD-2A, 2B & Tianyi-16, 17 & Tianqi-4A, 4BEPSUCCESS
- 2019Kuaizhou 1A | Jilin-1-02BEPSUCCESS
- 2018Long March 3B/E | Chang'e 4 (lander and rover)CASCSUCCESS
- 2018Long March 2D | SaudiSat 5A & 5BCASCSUCCESS
- 2016Delta IV M+(5,4) | WGS-8 (USA-272)ULASUCCESS
- 2016PSLV XL | Resourcesat-2AISROSUCCESS
- 2014Long March 4B | CBERS-4CASCSUCCESS
- 2001Delta II | JasonUSAFSUCCESS
- 1991Atlas II | Eutelsat II F-3USAFSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz U | Zenit-8 55CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 89CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Delta 3914 | Satcom 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 24CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 121-128CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Long March 2 | FSW-0 2CASCSUCCESS
- 1972Saturn V | Apollo 17NASASUCCESS
- 1968Atlas SLV-3C Centaur | OAO 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Atlas SLV-3 Agena D | ATS 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1960Thor DM-21 Agena-B | Discoverer 18USAFSUCCESS
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.