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February 23 in spaceflight

10 orbital launches flew on February 23, the earliest of them in 1977, and 10 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 7 spaceflight and astronomy events on February 23. Below are the pictures NASA published on February 23 in 1 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

10MISSIONS

10 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1977, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

7ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1941 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

1IMAGE

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for February 23, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on February 23

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

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

What happened on February 23

  1. 1941

    Plutonium was first chemically identified by chemist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Plutonium ↗

  2. 1941

    Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.

    Plutonium ↗

  3. 1987

    SN 1987A, the first supernova that modern astronomers were able to study in great detail, was observed from Earth occurring in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

    SN 1987A ↗

  4. 1987

    Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

    SN 1987A ↗

  5. 2002

    An Ariane 4 rocket is launched from the Guiana Space Centre carrying Intelsat 904.

    Ariane 4 ↗

  6. 2008

    The Japanese WINDS satellite is launched.

    WINDS ↗

  7. 2019

    Atlas Air Flight 3591, a Boeing 767 freighter, crashes into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, killing all three people on board.

    Atlas Air Flight 3591 ↗

Every launch on February 23

10 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-1SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2024Long March 5 | TJSW-11CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 7-15SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2023Long March 3B/E | ChinaSat 26CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2008H-IIA 2024 | KizunaJAXASUCCESS
  6. 2002Ariane 44L | INTELSAT 904ASASUCCESS
  7. 1999Delta II | ARGOSUSAFSUCCESS
  8. 1997Titan 402B IUS | DSP 18USAFSUCCESS
  9. 1992Delta II | GPS IIA-3USAFSUCCESS
  10. 1977N-I | Kiku 2NASDASUCCESS

FIELD KIT / LIBRARY

SPONSORED

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.

    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.