Launches
ON RECORD18MISSIONS
15 of them succeeded. The earliest was in 1965 and the latest in 2025.
MARKED ON THIS DATE
1968 · 58 years ago today
Earthrise
Bill Anders photographed the Earth coming up over the lunar horizon while Apollo 8 orbited the Moon on Christmas Eve.
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ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 24 in spaceflight
18 launches flew on December 24, the earliest of them in 1965, and 15 of them succeeded. Wikipedia lists 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 24. 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 1968.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
There's no Astronomy Picture of the Day we can show for this date.
What happened on December 24
1968
Piloted by Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 became the first human spaceflight to reach and orbit the Moon (Earthrise pictured).
Jim Lovell ↗1968
Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits, took the Earthrise photograph, broadcast live TV pictures, and read the first ten verses of Genesis.
Apollo program ↗
Launches on December 24Archive read 2026-11-05. Anything after that isn't listed here.
18 launches
ONLINE
- 2025LVM-3 | BlueBird 6 (Block 2 #1)ISROSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | SARah 2 & 3SpXSUCCESS
- 2019Proton-M/Blok DM-03 | Elektro-L No.3KhSCSUCCESS
- 2018Long March 3C | TJS-3 (TJSW-3)CASCSUCCESS
- 2015Proton-M Briz-M | Ekspress AMU1 / (EUTELSAT 36C)KhSCSUCCESS
- 2006Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat | Meridian No. 11LVKSSUCCESS
- 2004Tsiklon-3 | Sich-1MVKSFAILURE
- 2002Molniya-M | US-K 82PRSCSUCCESS
- 1998Kosmos-3M | Parus 90NPSUCCESS
- 1997Proton-K/DM-2M | Asiasat 3KhSCFAILURE
- 1997Start-1 | EarlyBirdRVSN RFSUCCESS
- 1996Soyuz U | Bion 11VKSSUCCESS
- 1985Proton | Uragan 12 & 13CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Molniya-M | Molniya-3 40LCCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Proton-K/DM | Raduga 22LCCCPFAILURE
- 1979Ariane 1 | CAT 1ESASUCCESS
- 1974Tsiklon-2 | US-P 1CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4A 28USAFSUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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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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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.