Launches
ON RECORD16MISSIONS
15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1964, the most recent 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
16 orbital launches flew on June 13, the earliest of them in 1964, and 15 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on June 13. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
16MISSIONS
15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1964, the most recent 2025.
4ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1967 onward.
0IMAGES
No Astronomy Picture of the Day is available for this date.
1967
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lyndon B. Johnson ↗1983
Pioneer 10 passed the orbit of Neptune, becoming the first man-made object to leave the proximity of the major planets of the Solar System.
Pioneer 10 ↗1983
Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Pioneer 10 ↗2010
A capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa, containing particles of the asteroid 25143 Itokawa, returns to Earth by landing in the Australian Outback.
Hayabusa ↗General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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LISTING
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.
LISTING
The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.
LISTING
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.
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LINKS AMAZON.COM
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.