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July 25 in spaceflight

26 orbital launches flew on July 25, the earliest of them in 1958, and 25 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 5 spaceflight and astronomy events on July 25. Below are the pictures NASA published on July 25 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

26MISSIONS

25 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1958, the most recent 2026.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

5ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1837 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

6IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 25, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on July 25

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

NASA Science

2026

NASA Science

Scientists are melting holes in the bottom of the world. In fact, almost 100 holes melted near the South Pole are now being used as an astronomical observatory. Astronomers with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory lowered a long string knotted with basketball-sized light detectors into each vertical lake. The water in each hole soon refreezes. The detectors attached to the strings are sensitive to blue light emitted in the surrounding clear ice. Such light results from fast-moving secondary particles liberated when high-energy neutrinos emitted by powerful processes out in the universe collide with ice molecules. IceCube has now detected many illuminating neutrinos. Pictured in 2010, one of the last of IceCube's detector strings is lowered into the freezing abyss, making IceCube the largest neutrino detector ever created. In recognition of unprecedented discoveries, it was announced earlier this week that a founding leader of the IceCube Collaboration will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.Tomorrow's picture: Moons Planet

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.

© Petr Horálek — used with the credit NASA publishes

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.

© Robert Shepherd — used with the credit NASA publishes

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.

NASA · public domain

What happened on July 25

  1. 1837

    The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated in London by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.

    Electrical telegraph ↗

  3. 1976

    The orbiting spacecraft Viking 1 took a photograph of an apparent face on Mars in a classic example of pareidolia.

    Viking 1 ↗

  5. 1984

    Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.

    Salyut 7 ↗

Every launch on July 25

26 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-51SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Ionosfera-M 3 & 4RFSASUCCESS
  3. 2020Long March 4B | Ziyuan-3-03CASCSUCCESS
  4. 2019Falcon 9 Block 5 | SpX CRS-18SpXSUCCESS
  5. 2019Hyperbola-1 | Maiden Flighti-SpaceSUCCESS
  6. 2018Falcon 9 Block 5 | Iridium-7SpXSUCCESS
  7. 2018Ariane 5 ES | Galileo L10 (FOC FM19-FM22)ASASUCCESS
  8. 2015Long March 3B / YZ-1 | BDS M1-S & BDS M2-SCASCSUCCESS
  9. 2013Ariane 5 ECA | Alphasat I-XL (Inmarsat-XL) & INSAT-3DASASUCCESS
  10. 2013SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise GF25VGSUCCESS
  11. 2012Long March 3C | Tianlian 1-03CASCSUCCESS
  12. 2004Long March 2C/SM | Tan Ce 2CASCSUCCESS
  13. 2002Proton-K/17S40 | Araks-N 2KhSCSUCCESS
  14. 1999Delta 7420-10C | Globalstar 26,28,43,48USAFSUCCESS
  15. 1996Atlas II | UHF F/O F7LMTSUCCESS
  16. 1990Atlas I | CRRESGDSUCCESS
  17. 1990Molniya 8K78M-PVB | US-K 65CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1989Kosmos-3M | Parus 67CCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1987Proton | Almaz-T 2CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1979Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 32CCCPSUCCESS
  21. 1974Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 71CCCPSUCCESS
  22. 1974Voskhod | Zenit-4M 61CCCPSUCCESS
  23. 1973Proton | Mars-5CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1973Voskhod | Zenit-4M 52CCCPSUCCESS
  25. 1967Thor SLV-2A Agena D | Multigroup 2 & Setter 1BUSAFSUCCESS
  26. 1958Project Pilot | NOTS 1USNFAILURE

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.