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September 21 in spaceflight

17 orbital launches flew on September 21, the earliest of them in 1960, and 15 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on September 21. Below are the pictures NASA published on September 21 in 2 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

17MISSIONS

15 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1960, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

3ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1934 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

2IMAGES

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

Published on September 21

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

NASA Science

2026

NASA Science

How many moons can you see? The best answer is five: four orbiting Jupiter and Luna orbiting Earth. This multi-moon picture was possible because Earth's Moon moved directly in front of Jupiter last week. The featured image is a series of exposures near alignment taken from Westchester, New York, USA. The sunlit crescent of Earth's Moon, on the lower left, is overexposed, while the Moon's night side, on the upper right, is faintly illuminated by Earthshine. Lined up nearly vertically above our Moon, listed from bottom to top, are Jupiter's bright Galilean satellites: Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa. Callisto, Ganymede, and Io are larger than Earth's Moon, while Europa is only slightly smaller. NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is currently orbiting Jupiter and has made close passes near three of these moons.Tomorrow's picture: stairway to heaven

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

What happened on September 21

  1. 1934

    Chandrashekhar Agashe established the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate Ltd., one of the oldest companies in India.

    Chandrashekhar Agashe ↗

  2. 1968

    The Soviet Union's Zond 5 landed in the Indian Ocean, becoming the first spacecraft to safely return to Earth after travelling around the Moon.

    Zond 5 ↗

Every launch on September 21

17 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-27SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2023Ceres-1 | Jilin-1 High Resolution 04BGEFAILURE
  3. 2022Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-22RFSASUCCESS
  4. 2020Long March 4B | Haiyang 2CCASCSUCCESS
  5. 2014Falcon 9 v1.1 | SpX CRS-4SpXSUCCESS
  6. 2011Ariane 5 ECA | Arabsat 5C & SES-2ASASUCCESS
  7. 2010Atlas V 501 | NROL-41 (USA-215)ULASUCCESS
  8. 2001Taurus 2110 | OrbView-4OSCFAILURE
  9. 2000Titan II SLV | NOAA 16USAFSUCCESS
  10. 1994Proton | Potok 8KhSCSUCCESS
  11. 1984Delta 3920/PAM | Galaxy 3USAFSUCCESS
  12. 1981Tsiklon-3 | Aureole 3CCCPSUCCESS
  13. 1976Soyuz U | Zenit-4MT 11CCCPSUCCESS
  14. 1973Soyuz U | Zenit-4MK 14CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 22CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1970Luna | Luna-16CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1960Blue Scout Jr | Blue Scout D-1USAFSUCCESS

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.