Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1958, the most recent 2026.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
August 26 in spaceflight
17 orbital launches flew on August 26, the earliest of them in 1958, and 15 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on August 26. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD1ENTRY
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1998 onward.
Pictures from this date
NONE0IMAGES
No Astronomy Picture of the Day is available for this date.
What happened on August 26
1998
The first flight of the Boeing Delta III ends in disaster 75 seconds after liftoff, resulting in the loss of the Galaxy X communications satellite.
Delta III ↗
Every launch on August 26
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2026Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-22SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Starship | Flight 10SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | NAOSSpXSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Crew-7SpXSUCCESS
- 2021New Shepard | NS-17BOSUCCESS
- 2017Minotaur IV | ORS-5OASUCCESS
- 2005Rokot / Briz-KM | Monitor-E No. 1VKSSUCCESS
- 1999Kosmos-3M | Parus 91NPSUCCESS
- 1994Zenit-2 | Orlets-2 1RFSASUCCESS
- 1982Delta 3920/PAM | Anik D1USAFSUCCESS
- 1980Soyuz U | Yantar-2K 13CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Soyuz-U | Soyuz 31CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 79CCCPSUCCESS
- 1974Soyuz | Soyuz 15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Thorad SLV-2G Agena D | Strawman 3USAFSUCCESS
- 1966Titan IIIC | IDCSP 8 to 14USAFFAILURE
- 1958Project Pilot | NOTS 5USNFAILURE
FIELD KIT / LIBRARY
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.