Launches
ON RECORD30MISSIONS
28 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1962 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1972 · 54 years ago today
The last people on the Moon
Gene Cernan climbed the ladder behind Harrison Schmitt and left the lunar surface. Nobody has been back since.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 14 in spaceflight
30 launches flew on December 14, the earliest of them in 1962, and 28 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 14. 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 1962.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on December 14
1972
Upon completing the third extra-vehicular activity of Apollo 17, American astronaut Gene Cernan became the last person to date to walk on the Moon.
Extravehicular activity ↗1972
Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the most recent person to walk on the Moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission.
Apollo program ↗2020
A total solar eclipse is visible from parts of the South Pacific Ocean, southern South America, and the South Atlantic Ocean.
Solar eclipse of December 14, 2020 ↗
Launches on December 14Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
30 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-12SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Electron | Raise and Shine (RAISE-4)RLSUCCESS
- 2024HASTE | StonehengeRLSUCCESS
- 2023Long March 2F/G | Chinese Reusable Space VehicleCASCSUCCESS
- 2022Long March 2D | Yaogan 36 Group 04CASCSUCCESS
- 2022Zhuque-2 | Maiden FlightLSFAILURE
- 2020Angara A5/Briz-M | Dummy payloadKhSCSUCCESS
- 2009Delta II 7320-10C | WISEULASUCCESS
- 2009Proton-M | Uragan-M 21 to 23KhSCSUCCESS
- 2007Soyuz-FG | Radarsat-2RFSASUCCESS
- 2006Delta II 7920-10 | NROL-21ULASUCCESS
- 2002H-IIA 202 | Midori-2JAXASUCCESS
- 1995Proton | Uragan 69 to 71KhSCSUCCESS
- 1994Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 88PRSCSUCCESS
- 1987Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 35CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 63CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Soyuz U | Bion 6CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-2 9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-2M 93CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Titan IIIC | DSCS-2 11 & 12USAFSUCCESS
- 1977Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-2 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Titan IIIC | DSP 5USAFSUCCESS
- 1972Apollo LM | Apollo 17NASASUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4M 44CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Thorad SLV-2G Agena D | Poppy 9A,B,C,DUSAFSUCCESS
- 1968Kosmos 11K63 | DS-U2-I 3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Thor Delta G | Biosat 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Titan IIIB | KH-8 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Soyuz | Soyuz 7K-OK No.1CCCPFAILURE
- 1962Thor Agena D | KH-4 17USAFSUCCESS
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.