Skip to content
DELTA-V

ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR

January 21 in spaceflight

20 orbital launches flew on January 21, the earliest of them in 1960, and 19 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 21. Below are the pictures NASA published on January 21 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

20MISSIONS

19 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1960, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

3ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1960 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

6IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for January 21, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on January 21

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.

NASA Science

2026

NASA Science

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

NASA · public domain

NASA Science

2025

NASA Science

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

NASA · public domain

NASA Science

2024

NASA Science

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

NASA · public domain

NASA Science

2023

NASA Science

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

© Organización Salmantina de la Astronáutica y el Espacio — used with the credit NASA publishes

NASA Science

2022

NASA Science

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

NASA · public domain

NASA Science

2021

NASA Science

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

© Wes Higgins — used with the credit NASA publishes

What happened on January 21

  1. 1960

    Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia, with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, on board.

    Little Joe 1B ↗

  3. 2004

    NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.

    NASA ↗

Every launch on January 21

20 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-8SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 13-1SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2022Atlas V 511 | USSF-8ULASUCCESS
  4. 2019Long March 11 | Jilin-1 Hyperspectral 01, 02, Xiaoxiang-1-03, Lingque-1ACASCSUCCESS
  5. 2018Electron | Still TestingRLSUCCESS
  6. 2017Atlas V 401 | SBIRS GEO Flight 3 (SBIRS GEO-4)ULASUCCESS
  7. 2015Atlas V 551 | MUOS-3ULASUCCESS
  8. 2008PSLV | TECSAR 1ISROSUCCESS
  9. 2000Atlas IIA | DSCS-3 B8LMTSUCCESS
  10. 1992Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 62VKSSUCCESS
  11. 1987Kosmos-3M | Strela-2M 41CCCPSUCCESS
  12. 1982Titan 24B | KH-8 52USAFSUCCESS
  13. 1981Kosmos-3M | DS-P1-M 15CCCPSUCCESS
  14. 1975Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 74CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1971Titan 23B | KH-8 30USAFSUCCESS
  16. 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 16CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1970Voskhod | Zenit-4 68CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1965Atlas D | OV1-1USAFFAILURE
  19. 1964Thor Delta B | Relay 2USAFSUCCESS
  20. 1960Little Joe | LJ-1BNASASUCCESS

FIELD KIT / LIBRARY

SPONSORED

General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Links here cost you nothing extra.

  • LISTING

    Cosmos — Carl Sagan

    Still the best single argument for why any of this matters, and it leaves the arithmetic in. For a reader who wants the science, not just the awe.

    VIEW

  • LISTING

    Pale Blue Dot — Carl Sagan

    The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.

    VIEW

  • LISTING

    Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir

    Hard-SF problem solving in The Martian's key — for anyone who liked the engineering more than the peril. The only novel on this list.

    VIEW

BROWSE opens an Amazon search, not a specific recommendation.

LINKS AMAZON.COM

Sources and licences

Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images are drawn only from Wikimedia Commons, which does not accept non-free content — each thumbnail links to its file page, where its licence and author are recorded.

Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; NASA imagery is generally not subject to copyright, but individual APOD entries are frequently the property of the photographer, and each caption says which applies.