Launches
ON RECORD22MISSIONS
21 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1959, the most recent 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
September 18 in spaceflight
22 orbital launches flew on September 18, the earliest of them in 1959, and 21 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on September 18. Below are the pictures NASA published on September 18 in 5 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 1980 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for September 18, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on September 18
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
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
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.
© Team Ciel Austral — 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.
NASA · public domain
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
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 September 18
1980
A fuel leak from a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile at a USAF base near Damascus, Arkansas, results in an explosion in a missile silo, killing one person and injuring 21 others.
LGM-25C Titan II ↗
Every launch on September 18
22 launches
ONLINE
- 2025New Shepard | NS-35BOSUCCESS
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-61SpXSUCCESS
- 2013Antares 110 | Cygnus Orb-1 (S.S. G. David Low)OSCSUCCESS
- 2013Atlas V 531 | AEHF-3 (USA-246)ULASUCCESS
- 2012Long March 3B/E | Compass-M5 & Compass-M6CASCSUCCESS
- 2011Long March 3B/E | Chinasat-1ACASCSUCCESS
- 2007Delta II 7920-10 | WorldView-1ULASUCCESS
- 2006Soyuz-FG | Soyuz TMA-9RFSASUCCESS
- 2002Atlas IIAS | Hispasat 1DLMTSUCCESS
- 1982Soyuz U | Progress 15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Soyuz U | Zenit-4MT 21CCCPSUCCESS
- 1981Kosmos-3M | Parus 29CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Soyuz-U | Soyuz 38CCCPSUCCESS
- 1977Tsiklon-2 | US-A 15CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 22 (28L)CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Feng Bao 1 | JSSW 1aCASCFAILURE
- 1969Voskhod | Zenit-4 65CCCPSUCCESS
- 1968Thorad SLV-2G Agena D | KH-4A 48USAFSUCCESS
- 1965Kosmos 65S3 | Strela-1 25 to 29CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Saturn I | Saturn-SA 7NASASUCCESS
- 1962Thor Delta | Tiros 6USAFSUCCESS
- 1959Vanguard | Vanguard IIIUSNSUCCESS
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.