Launches
ON RECORD4MISSIONS
4 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1976, the most recent 2024.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
February 29 in spaceflight
4 orbital launches flew on February 29, the earliest of them in 1976, and 4 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on February 29. Below are the pictures NASA published on February 29 in 1 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD1ENTRY
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1504 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED1IMAGE
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for February 29, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on February 29
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
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
What happened on February 29
1504
Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Jamaican natives to provide him with supplies.
Christopher Columbus ↗
Every launch on February 29
4 launches
ONLINE
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-40SpXSUCCESS
- 2024Long March 3B/E | WHG-01CASCSUCCESS
- 2024Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Meteor-M No.2-4 & othersRFSASUCCESS
- 1976N-I | Ume 1NASDASUCCESS
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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- VIEW
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.