Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
16 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1961, the most recent 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
January 31 in spaceflight
17 orbital launches flew on January 31, the earliest of them in 1961, and 16 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 9 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 31. Below are the pictures NASA published on January 31 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD9ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1862 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for January 31, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on January 31
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
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
2025
NASA Science
Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet's moons in 1877. Over 9 kilometers across, Stickney is nearly half the diameter of Phobos itself, so large that the impact that blasted out the crater likely came close to shattering the tiny moon. This enhanced-color image of Stickney and surroundings was recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within some six thousand kilometers of Phobos in March of 2008. Even though the surface gravity of asteroid-like Phobos is less than 1/1000th Earth's gravity, streaks suggest loose material slid down inside the crater walls over time. Light bluish regions near the crater's rim could indicate a relatively freshly exposed surface. The origin of the curious grooves along the surface is mysterious but may be related to tidal stresses experienced by close-orbiting Phobos or the crater-forming impact itself.Tomorrow's picture: farside
NASA · public domain
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
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
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.
NASA · public domain
What happened on January 31
1862
Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch (47 cm) telescope now located at Northwestern University.
Alvan Graham Clark ↗1943
World War II: German field marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed two days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of the war's fiercest battles.
Friedrich Paulus ↗1944
World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
Kwajalein Atoll ↗1958
Cold War: Space Race: The Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite, detects the Van Allen radiation belt.
Space Race ↗1961
Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, the chimpanzee Ham became the first hominid to be launched into outer space.
NASA ↗1961
Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2: The chimpanzee Ham travels into outer space.
Project Mercury ↗1966
The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
Soviet Union ↗1971
Apollo program: Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.
Apollo program ↗2023
The last Boeing 747, the first wide-body airliner, is delivered to Atlas Air and operated for ApexLogistics. The aircraft was registered as N863GT and named "Empower".
Boeing 747 ↗
Every launch on January 31
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Long March 2C | AlSat 3BCASCSUCCESS
- 2024Electron | Four Of A Kind (NorthStar 1)RLSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 2-6 & ION SCV009SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | CSG-2SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Electron | Birds of a Feather (NROL-151)RLSUCCESS
- 2018Falcon 9 Full Thrust | GovSat (SES-16)SpXSUCCESS
- 2015Delta II 7320-10C | SMAP, FIREBIRD II A, FIREBIRD II B, GRIFEX, ExoCubeULASUCCESS
- 2013Atlas V 401 | TDRS-KULASUCCESS
- 1984Titan 34D Transtage | Vortex 11USAFSUCCESS
- 1979Soyuz U | Kosmos 1074CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 11CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Thor Delta L | HEOS 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1971Saturn V | Apollo 14NASASUCCESS
- 1967Scout B | OV3-5USAFFAILURE
- 1966Molniya-M | Luna-9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1961Atlas LV-3A | Samos 2USAFSUCCESS
- 1961Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 2NASASUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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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.
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.