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August 21 in spaceflight

20 orbital launches flew on August 21, the earliest of them in 1959, and 19 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 7 spaceflight and astronomy events on August 21. Below are the pictures NASA published on August 21 in 4 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

20MISSIONS

19 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1959, the most recent 2026.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

7ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1808 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

4IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 21, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on August 21

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

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.

© Klaus Pillwatsch — 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.

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

What happened on August 21

  1. 1808

    Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.

    Battle of Vimeiro ↗

  2. 1810

    Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.

    Charles XIV John ↗

  3. 1945

    American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core, exposing himself to neutron radiation and later becoming the first Manhattan Project fatality due to a criticality accident.

    Harry Daghlian ↗

  4. 1945

    Physicist Harry Daghlian is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

    Harry Daghlian ↗

  5. 1993

    NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

    NASA ↗

  6. 2013

    Syrian civil war: Areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in Ghouta, Damascus, were attacked by rockets (launcher pictured) containing sarin, killing at least 281 people.

    Syrian civil war ↗

Every launch on August 21

20 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-39SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Angara 1.2 | Kosmos 2591-2594VKSSUCCESS
  3. 2021Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | OneWeb 9ASASUCCESS
  4. 2009Ariane 5 ECA | JCSAT-12 & Optus D3ASASUCCESS
  5. 2002Atlas V 401 | Hot Bird 6LMTSUCCESS
  6. 2001Soyuz U | Progress M-45RFSASUCCESS
  7. 1997Delta II | Iridium 22 to 26USAFSUCCESS
  8. 1996Pegasus XL | Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST)OSCSUCCESS
  9. 1991Soyuz-U-PVB | Resurs-F2 7CCCPSUCCESS
  10. 1986Soyuz U | Zenit-8 36CCCPSUCCESS
  11. 1981Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 1CCCPSUCCESS
  12. 1979Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 12CCCPSUCCESS
  13. 1973Titan 33B | Jumpseat 3USAFSUCCESS
  14. 1973Voskhod | Zenit-4M 53CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1972Tsiklon-2 | US-A 4CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1972Atlas SLV-3C Centaur | CopernicusUSAFSUCCESS
  17. 1968X-15 | Flight 197USAFSUCCESS
  18. 1965Titan II GLV | Gemini VNASASUCCESS
  19. 1964Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-5 12USAFSUCCESS
  20. 1959Little Joe | LJ-1NASAFAILURE

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.