Launches
ON RECORD31MISSIONS
29 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1960 and the latest in 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 20 in spaceflight
31 launches flew on December 20, the earliest of them in 1960, and 29 of them succeeded. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
NONE FOUND0ENTRIES
Wikipedia doesn't list any spaceflight or astronomy events on this date.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
Launches on December 20Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
31 launches
ONLINE
- 2025New Shepard | NS-37BOSUCCESS
- 2025Long March 5 | TJSW-23CASCSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 3B/E | TJSW-12CASCSUCCESS
- 2019Atlas V N22 | CST-100 Starliner Orbital Flight TestULASUCCESS
- 2019Long March 4B | CBERS-4ACASCSUCCESS
- 2016Epsilon | ERG (ARASE)JAXASUCCESS
- 2013Long March 3B/E | Túpac Katari 1CASCSUCCESS
- 2009Soyuz-FG | Soyuz TMA-17RFSASUCCESS
- 2008Ariane 5 ECA | Eutelsat W2M & Hot Bird 9ASASUCCESS
- 2007Delta II 7925-9.5 | GPS IIR-M-5 (USA-199)ULASUCCESS
- 2002Dnepr | AATiS-OSCAR-49ISCKSUCCESS
- 2000Long March 3A | Beidou Daohang Shiyan Wei. 2CASCSUCCESS
- 2000Ariane 5 G | Astra 2D & GE-8, LDREXASASUCCESS
- 1999Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-103NASASUCCESS
- 1997Delta II | Iridium 45 to 49USAFSUCCESS
- 1997Soyuz U | Progress M-37RFSASUCCESS
- 1996Titan 404A | KH-11 12USAFSUCCESS
- 1996Kosmos-3M | Parus 87NPSUCCESS
- 1995Tsiklon-2 | US-PM 7RFSASUCCESS
- 1994Kosmos-3M | Strela-2M 52NPSUCCESS
- 1990Proton | Raduga 26CCCPSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz-U2 | Progress M-2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984Kosmos-3M | Taifun-1B 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Ariane 1 | Marecs 1ASASUCCESS
- 1978Kosmos-3M | Parus 16CCCPFAILURE
- 1977Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 8CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Atlas SLV-3A Agena D | Canyon 5USAFSUCCESS
- 1971Atlas SLV-3C Centaur | INTELSAT IV F3USAFSUCCESS
- 1969Kosmos-3M | Tselina-O 5CCCPSUCCESS
- 1966Lambda 4S | Ohsumi 2ISASFAILURE
- 1960Thor DM-21 Agena-B | Discoverer 19USAFSUCCESS
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.
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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.