Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1965, the most recent 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
July 13 in spaceflight
17 orbital launches flew on July 13, the earliest of them in 1965, and 15 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on July 13. Below are the pictures NASA published on July 13 in 2 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1558 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED2IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 13, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on July 13
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
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
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
What happened on July 13
1558
Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul de Thermes at Gravelines.
Battle of Gravelines (1558) ↗1830
The General Assembly's Institution, now the Scottish Church College, one of the pioneering institutions that ushered the Bengali Renaissance, is founded by Alexander Duff and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, in Calcutta, India.
Scottish Church College ↗1995
Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-70 to deploy the TDRS-7 satellite.
Space Shuttle Discovery ↗
Every launch on July 13
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dror-1SpXSUCCESS
- 2022Vega-C | LARES-2 (Maiden flight)ESASUCCESS
- 2022Electron | Wise One Looks Ahead (NROL-162)RLSUCCESS
- 2019Proton-M/Blok DM-03 | Spektr-RGKhSCSUCCESS
- 2014Antares 120 | Cygnus CRS Orb-2 (S.S. Janice Voss)OSCSUCCESS
- 2011Soyuz-2.1a/Fregat | 6 x Globalstar-2SSASUCCESS
- 1995Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-70LSOCSUCCESS
- 1992Tsiklon-3 | Strela-3 79 to 82VKSSUCCESS
- 1988ASLV | SROSS-BISROFAILURE
- 1983Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 81CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 21CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 11CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Kosmos-3M | Parus 9CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Titan IIID | KH-9 6USAFSUCCESS
- 1972Soyuz 11A511M | Zenit-4MT 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1969Proton | Luna-15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Vostok 8A92 | Zenit-2 29CCCPFAILURE
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.