Launches
ON RECORD22MISSIONS
19 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1964 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 9 in spaceflight
22 launches flew on December 9, the earliest of them in 1964, and 19 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on December 9. 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 2006.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on December 9
2006
Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-116 carrying the P5 truss segment of the International Space Station.
Space Shuttle program ↗
Launches on December 9Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
22 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | NROL-77SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Long March 3B/E | TJSW-22CASCSUCCESS
- 2025Long March 4B | Yaogan 47CASCSUCCESS
- 2022Smart Dragon 3 | Maiden FlightCHNRSUCCESS
- 2021Falcon 9 Block 5 | X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Electron | A Data With Destiny (BlackSky 14-15)RLSUCCESS
- 2020Starship SN8 | 12.5 km FlightSpXPARTIAL
- 2020Long March 11 | GECAMCASCSUCCESS
- 2016H-IIB 304 | Kounotori 6 (HTV-6)MHISUCCESS
- 2015Long March 3B/E | ChinaSat-1CCASCSUCCESS
- 2013Long March 4B | CBERS-3CASCFAILURE
- 2009Long March 2D | Yaogan Weixing 7CASCSUCCESS
- 2007Delta II 7420-10 | COSMO-SkyMed 2ULASUCCESS
- 2007Proton-M Briz-M | Raduga-1MKhSCSUCCESS
- 1997Tsiklon-2 | US-PM 9RFSASUCCESS
- 1992Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1M 3RFSASUCCESS
- 1980Atlas E/MSD | Parcae 4A,B,C & MSD 4USAFFAILURE
- 1976Kosmos-3M | DS-P1-M 10CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 73CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Thorad SLV-2G Agena D | KH-4B 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4A 27USAFSUCCESS
- 1964Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-MT 3CCCPSUCCESS
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.