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June 13 in spaceflight

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. Below are the pictures NASA published on June 13 in 4 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

16MISSIONS

15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1964, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

4ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1967 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

4IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for June 13, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on June 13

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

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.

NASA · public domain

What happened on June 13

  1. 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 ↗

  2. 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 ↗

  3. 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 ↗

  4. 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 ↗

Every launch on June 13

16 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 12-26SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-6SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2021Pegasus XL | Odyssey (TacRL-2)NGSSSUCCESS
  4. 2020MOMO | Flight 5ISTECHFAILURE
  5. 2020Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink 8SpXSUCCESS
  6. 2020Electron | Don't Stop Me Now (Rideshare)RLSUCCESS
  7. 2012Pegasus XL | Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)OSCSUCCESS
  8. 1991Tsiklon-3 | Tselina-R 3CCCPSUCCESS
  9. 1990Molniya-M | Molniya-3 47LCCCPSUCCESS
  10. 1985Soyuz U | Zenit-8 16CCCPSUCCESS
  11. 1984Atlas E/SGS-2 | GPS 9USAFSUCCESS
  12. 1974Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 27CCCPSUCCESS
  13. 1972Atlas SLV-3C Centaur | INTELSAT IV F5USAFSUCCESS
  14. 1970Kosmos 11K63 | DS-U2-GK 2CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1968Titan IIIC | IDCSP 20 to 27USAFSUCCESS
  16. 1964Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-5 11USAFSUCCESS

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.