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August 11 in spaceflight

14 orbital launches flew on August 11, the earliest of them in 1962, and 14 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on August 11. Below are the pictures NASA published on August 11 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

14MISSIONS

14 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1962, the most recent 2026.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

3ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1962 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

6IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 11, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on August 11

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.

© The Deep Sky Collective — used with the credit NASA publishes

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.

© Urs Leutenegger — used with the credit NASA publishes

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 August 11

  1. 1962

    Vostok 3 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in microgravity.

    Vostok 3 and 4 ↗

  2. 1969

    The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine following their liftoff from the Moon.

    Apollo 11 ↗

  3. 2023

    Luna 25 launches from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

    Luna 25 ↗

Every launch on August 11

14 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-19SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Amazon Leo (KF-02)SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2024Electron | A Sky Full of SARs (Capella Acadia 3)RLSUCCESS
  4. 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-9SpXSUCCESS
  5. 2012SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise GF22VGSUCCESS
  6. 2011Long March 3B/E | Paksat-1RCASCSUCCESS
  7. 2009Proton-M | Asiasat 5KhSCSUCCESS
  8. 2006Ariane 5 ECA | JCSAT-10 & Syracuse 3BASASUCCESS
  9. 2005Ariane 5 GS | Thaicom 4ASASUCCESS
  10. 2004Soyuz U | Progress M-50RFSASUCCESS
  11. 1994Proton | Uragan 57 to 59KhSCSUCCESS
  12. 1979Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 33CCCPSUCCESS
  13. 1965Atlas Centaur D | Surveyor-SD 2USAFSUCCESS
  14. 1962Vostok-K | Vostok 3CCCPSUCCESS

FIELD KIT / LIBRARY

SPONSORED

General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.

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  • 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.