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March 21 in spaceflight

24 orbital launches flew on March 21, the earliest of them in 1963, and 22 reached orbit. Below are the pictures NASA published on March 21 in 2 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

24MISSIONS

22 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1963, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

NONE FOUND

0ENTRIES

Wikipedia records no spaceflight or astronomy event on this date.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

2IMAGES

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

Published on March 21

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.

© Rabeea Alkuwari — used with the credit NASA publishes

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.

NASA · public domain

Every launch on March 21

24 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Ceres-1 | Yunyao-1 43-48GESUCCESS
  2. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | NROL-57SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-30SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2024Electron | Live and Let Fly (NROL-123)RLSUCCESS
  5. 2024Long March 2D/YZ-3 | Yunhai-2 Group 02CASCSUCCESS
  6. 2020Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | OneWeb 3ASASUCCESS
  7. 2018Soyuz-FG | Soyuz MS-08RFSASUCCESS
  8. 2007Falcon 1 | DemoSatSpXFAILURE
  9. 2002Soyuz U | Progress M1-8RFSASUCCESS
  10. 2000Ariane 5 G | INSAT-3B & AsiaStarASASUCCESS
  11. 1999Proton-K/DM-2M | Asiasat 3SKhSCSUCCESS
  12. 1996PSLV | IRS-P3ISROSUCCESS
  13. 1986Tsiklon-2 | US-A 28CCCPSUCCESS
  14. 1985Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 289-296CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1984Soyuz-U-PVB | Zenit-6U 93CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1979Kosmos-3M | Parus 18CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1975Soyuz U | Zenit-4MT 8CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1971Titan 33B | Jumpseat 1USAFSUCCESS
  19. 1968Voskhod | Zenit-2M 1CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1967Kosmos 11K63 | DS-MO 1CCCPSUCCESS
  21. 1966Voskhod | Zenit-4 16CCCPSUCCESS
  22. 1965Atlas Agena B | Ranger 9USAFSUCCESS
  23. 1964Molniya 8K78 | Luna-5aCCCPFAILURE
  24. 1963Vostok 8A92 | Zenit-2 8CCCPSUCCESS

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.