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June 2 in spaceflight

15 orbital launches flew on June 2, the earliest of them in 1962, and 15 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on June 2. Below are the pictures NASA published on June 2 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

15MISSIONS

15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1962, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

4ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1910 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

6IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for June 2, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on June 2

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

NASA Science

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

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

NASA Science

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

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

NASA Science

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.

© Quentin Gineys — used with the credit NASA publishes

NASA Science

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 June 2

  1. 1910

    Charles Rolls, a co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.

    Charles Rolls ↗

  2. 1966

    Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.

    Surveyor program ↗

  4. 2003

    Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

    Mars ↗

Every launch on June 2

15 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Electron | Full Stream Ahead (BlackSky Gen-3 2)RLSUCCESS
  2. 2022Long March 2C | Geely Constellation Group 01CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2021Long March 3B | Fengyun-4BCASCSUCCESS
  4. 2018Long March 2D | Gaofen 6 & Luojia-1CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2010Long March 3C | Compass-G3CASCSUCCESS
  6. 2010Rokot / Briz-KM | SERVIS-2ELSSUCCESS
  7. 2003Soyuz-FG | Mars ExpressRFSASUCCESS
  8. 1998Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-91LSOCSUCCESS
  9. 1983Proton-K/D-1 | Venera-15CCCPSUCCESS
  10. 1982Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 59CCCPSUCCESS
  11. 1979Scout D-1 | Ariel 6SERCSUCCESS
  12. 1978Molniya-M | Molniya-1K 40CCCPSUCCESS
  13. 1976Kosmos-3M | Zaliv 21CCCPSUCCESS
  14. 1976Titan 34B | Quasar 1USAFSUCCESS
  15. 1962Thor DM-21 Agena-B | KH-4 5USAFSUCCESS

FIELD KIT / LIBRARY

SPONSORED

General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Links here cost you nothing extra.

  • 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.