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July 23 in spaceflight

23 orbital launches flew on July 23, the earliest of them in 1965, and 22 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 9 spaceflight and astronomy events on July 23. Below are the pictures NASA published on July 23 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

23MISSIONS

22 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1965, the most recent 2026.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

9ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1677 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

6IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 23, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on July 23

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

NASA Science

2026

NASA Science

This stairway in Chile brings you only a little bit closer to heaven. But ooh, the sky above it makes you wonder. For example, you may wonder about the dark lane of our own Milky Way galaxy rising behind the expansive Atacama Desert in Chile, the band of zodiacal light on the upper left, the green and red airglow just above the horizon, the star Spica in the zodiacal light stripe, and, at the very top on the right, the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy. The Desert Staircase sculpture is in the foreground, and this image was timed to catch the picturesque peering perch just in front of the near-vertical Milky Way band. Upon close inspection of the horizon you can find, left to right, some Andes Mountains, the Licancabur volcano, and the town lights of San Pedro de Atacama. The featured wide-angle composite was captured in July 2025.Tomorrow's picture: open space

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.

NASA · public domain

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.

© Patrick Hsieh — used with the credit NASA publishes

What happened on July 23

  1. 1677

    Scanian War: Denmark–Norway captures the harbor town of Marstrand from Sweden.

    Scanian War ↗

  2. 1962

    Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.

    Telstar ↗

  3. 1972

    The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.

    Landsat 1 ↗

  4. 1980

    Phạm Tuân becomes the first Vietnamese citizen and the first Asian in space when he flies aboard the Soyuz 37 mission as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut.

    Phạm Tuân ↗

  5. 1995

    Hale–Bopp, one of the most widely observed comets of the 20th century, was independently discovered by astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp.

    Comet Hale–Bopp ↗

  6. 1995

    Comet Hale–Bopp is discovered; it becomes visible to the naked eye on Earth nearly a year later.

    Comet Hale–Bopp ↗

  7. 1999

    Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-93, with Eileen Collins becoming the first female space shuttle commander. The shuttle also carried and deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

    Space Shuttle Columbia ↗

  8. 2012

    The Solar storm of 2012 was an unusually large coronal mass ejection that was emitted by the Sun which barely missed the Earth by nine days. If it hit, it would have caused up to US$2.6 trillion in damages to electrical equipment worldwide.

    July 2012 solar storm ↗

  9. 2015

    NASA announces discovery of Kepler-452b by the Kepler space telescope.

    NASA ↗

Every launch on July 23

23 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2026Kinetica 1 | 5 satellitesCASSUCCESS
  2. 2026Long March 3B/E | Tianlian 2-06CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | TRACERSSpXSUCCESS
  4. 2023Long March 2D | Skysight AS-01 to 03 & Lingxi-03CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2020Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-15 (76P)RFSASUCCESS
  6. 2020Long March 5 | Tianwen-1 (Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover)CASCSUCCESS
  7. 2014Soyuz-U | Progress M-24M (56P)RFSASUCCESS
  8. 2001Atlas IIA | GOES 12LMTSUCCESS
  9. 1999Space Shuttle Columbia OV-102 | STS-93USASUCCESS
  10. 1997Delta II | GPS IIR-2USAFSUCCESS
  11. 1991Soyuz U | Resurs-F 12CCCPSUCCESS
  12. 1980Soyuz-U | Soyuz 37CCCPSUCCESS
  13. 1977Proton-K/DM | Raduga 3CCCPSUCCESS
  14. 1976Molniya-M | Molniya-1K 35CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1975Voskhod | Zenit-2M 59CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1974Molniya-M | Molniya-2 10CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1972Delta 0900 | Landsat 1USAFSUCCESS
  18. 1971Voskhod | Zenit-4M 19CCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1970Thor Delta M | INTELSAT III F-8USAFSUCCESS
  20. 1970Thorad SLV-2H Agena D | KH-4B 11USAFSUCCESS
  21. 1969Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 23CCCPFAILURE
  22. 1969Thor Burner 2 | DSAP-4B F3USAFSUCCESS
  23. 1965Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-P1-Yu 3CCCPSUCCESS

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.