Launches
ON RECORD23MISSIONS
22 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1962, the most recent 2024.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
August 2 in spaceflight
23 orbital launches flew on August 2, the earliest of them in 1962, and 22 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on August 2. Below are the pictures NASA published on August 2 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD1ENTRY
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1991 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED6IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 2, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on August 2
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2026
NASA Science
Tidally locked in synchronous rotation, the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to denizens of planet Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon's farside can become familiar, though. In fact this sharp picture, a mosaic from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's wide angle camera, is centered on the lunar farside. Part of a global mosaic of over 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011, the highest resolution version shows features at a scale of 100 meters per pixel. Surprisingly, the rough and battered surface of the farside looks very different from the nearside covered with smooth dark lunar maria. A likely explanation is that the farside crust is thicker, making it harder for molten material from the interior to flow to the surface and form dark, smooth maria.Tomorrow's picture: Sunday's Childe
NASA · public domain
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.
© Daniel Korona — used with the credit NASA publishes
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.
© TWAN — used with the credit NASA publishes
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
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
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 August 2
1991
Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-43 to deploy the TDRS-5 satellite.
Space Shuttle Atlantis ↗
Every launch on August 2
23 launches
ONLINE
- 2024Electron | Owl for One, One for Owl (StriX Launch 5)RLSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-6SpXSUCCESS
- 2023Antares 230+ | Cygnus CRS-2 NG-19 (S.S. Laurel Clark)NGSSSUCCESS
- 2017Vega | OptSat 3000 & VENµS (VENUS)ASASUCCESS
- 2014Atlas V 401 | GPS IIF-7 (USA-256)ULASUCCESS
- 2012Ariane 5 ECA | Intelsat 20 & HYLAS 2ASASUCCESS
- 2012SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise GF20VGSUCCESS
- 2007Soyuz U | Progress M-61RFSASUCCESS
- 2005Long March 2C | Fanhui Shi Weixing (21)CASCSUCCESS
- 1998Pegasus XL HAPS | Orbcomm-B1 - B8OSCSUCCESS
- 1995Molniya-M | Interbol-1PRSCSUCCESS
- 1994Kosmos-3M | Obzor TestNPSUCCESS
- 1993Titan 403A | SLDCOM 3USAFFAILURE
- 1991Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-43LSOCSUCCESS
- 1990Delta 6925 | GPS-2 8USAFSUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz U | Zenit-8 85CCCPSUCCESS
- 1986Soyuz U | Resurs-F1 17F40 60L 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Soyuz U | Zenit-8 20CCCPSUCCESS
- 1984N-2 | Himawari 3NASDASUCCESS
- 1984Molniya-M | US-K 36CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4M 40CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Apollo LM | Apollo 15NASASUCCESS
- 1962Thor Agena D | KH-4 10USAFSUCCESS
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.