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October 6 in spaceflight

19 orbital launches flew on October 6, the earliest of them in 1964, and 18 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 5 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 6. Pick another date to see what happened on it.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

19MISSIONS

18 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1964, the most recent 2023.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

5ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1915 onward.

Pictures from this date

NONE

0IMAGES

No Astronomy Picture of the Day is available for this date.

What happened on October 6

  1. 1915

    World War I: Combined Austro-Hungarian and German Central Powers, reinforced by the recently joined Bulgaria, launch a new offensive against Serbia under command of August von Mackensen.

    World War I ↗

  2. 1990

    Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-41, and deploys the Ulysses space probe to study the Sun's polar regions.

    Space Shuttle Discovery ↗

  3. 1995

    Astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz reported the discovery of a planet orbiting 51 Pegasi as the first known exoplanet around a main-sequence star.

    Michel Mayor ↗

  4. 1995

    The first planet orbiting another sun, 51 Pegasi b, is discovered.

    51 Pegasi b ↗

  5. 2008

    The MESSENGER probe discovered Mercury's Rembrandt (pictured) – the second largest impact crater on the planet.

    MESSENGER ↗

Every launch on October 6

19 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2023Atlas V 501 | Amazon Leo (Project Kuiper) Protoflight MissionULASUCCESS
  2. 2023SpaceShipTwo | Galactic 04VGSUCCESS
  3. 2020Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink 12SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2010Long March 4B | Shijian 6G & Shijian 6HCASCSUCCESS
  5. 2001Proton | Raduga-1 6KhSCSUCCESS
  6. 2000Ariane 42L | N-SAT-110ASASUCCESS
  7. 1995Kosmos-3M | Parus 84NPFAILURE
  8. 1994Atlas IIAS | INTELSAT 703USAFSUCCESS
  9. 1992Long March 2C | FSW-1 4 & FrejaCASCSUCCESS
  10. 1990Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-41LSOCSUCCESS
  11. 1986Soyuz U | Yantar-1KFT 6CCCPSUCCESS
  12. 1986Long March 2C | FSW-0 8CASCSUCCESS
  13. 1981Delta 2310 | Solar Mesosphere ExplorerUSAFSUCCESS
  14. 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 21CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1975Delta 2910 | AE-DUSAFSUCCESS
  16. 1973Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 15CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1969Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 2 (15L)CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1964Thor DM-21 Ablestar | Transit-O 1USAFSUCCESS
  19. 1964Voskhod | Voskhod-3KV 1CCCPSUCCESS

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.

    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

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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.