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March 28 in spaceflight

17 orbital launches flew on March 28, the earliest of them in 1963, and 15 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on March 28. Pick another date to see what happened on it.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

17MISSIONS

15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1963, the most recent 2026.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

3ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1802 onward.

Pictures from this date

NONE

0IMAGES

No Astronomy Picture of the Day is available for this date.

What happened on March 28

  1. 1802

    German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers discovered Pallas, the second asteroid to be identified, but at the time considered to be a planet.

    Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers ↗

  3. 1910

    Henri Fabre becomes the first person to fly a seaplane, the Fabre Hydravion, after taking off from water runway Étang le Barre, near Marseille.

    Henri Fabre ↗

Every launch on March 28

17 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2026Electron | Daughter Of The Stars (LEO-PNT Pathfinder A)RLSUCCESS
  2. 2023Shavit-2 | Ofek-13IAISUCCESS
  3. 2019Electron | Two Thumbs Up (DARPA R3D2)RLSUCCESS
  4. 2015PSLV XL | IRNSS-1DISROSUCCESS
  5. 2013Soyuz FG | Soyuz TMA-08MRFSASUCCESS
  6. 2006Pegasus XL | Space Technology 5 (ST-5) (3x microsats)OSCSUCCESS
  7. 2003H-IIA 2024 | IGS Radar 1 & IGS Optical 1JAXASUCCESS
  8. 1999Zenit | DemoSatSLSUCCESS
  9. 1996Delta II | GPS IIA-16USAFSUCCESS
  10. 1995Ariane 44LP | Brasilsat B2 & Hotbird 1ASASUCCESS
  11. 1995Start | Gurwin-1VKSFAILURE
  12. 1986Ariane 3 | Gstar 2 & Brasilsat A2ASASUCCESS
  13. 1983Atlas E | NOAA 8USAFSUCCESS
  14. 1981Soyuz U | Yantar-2K 17CCCPFAILURE
  15. 1978Kosmos-3M | Parus 14CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1969Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-I 5CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1963Saturn I | Saturn SA-4NASASUCCESS

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.

    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.