Skip to content
DELTA-V

ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR

October 26 in spaceflight

27 orbital launches flew on October 26, the earliest of them in 1960, and 25 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on October 26. Pick another date to see what happened on it.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

27MISSIONS

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

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

1ENTRY

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1968 onward.

Pictures from this date

NONE

0IMAGES

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

What happened on October 26

  1. 1968

    Space Race: The Soyuz 3 mission achieves the first Soviet space rendezvous.

    Space Race ↗

Every launch on October 26

27 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-21SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Long March 3B/E | Gaofen-14 02CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2025H3-24 | HTV-X1MHISUCCESS
  4. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-8SpXSUCCESS
  5. 2023Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 17CASCSUCCESS
  6. 2022Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-21 (82P)RFSASUCCESS
  7. 2021H-IIA 202 | QZS-1RMHISUCCESS
  8. 2020Long March 2C | Yaogan-30-07CASCSUCCESS
  9. 2019SARGE | Launch 4EXOSFAILURE
  10. 2015Long March 2D | Tianhui-1CCASCSUCCESS
  11. 2007Proton | Uragan-M 9 to 11KhSCSUCCESS
  12. 2006Delta II | STEREO A & BUSAFSUCCESS
  13. 1993Delta II | GPS IIA-14USAFSUCCESS
  14. 1993Kosmos-3M | Taifun-1B 13NPSUCCESS
  15. 1987Titan 34D | KH-11 8USAFSUCCESS
  16. 1983Kosmos-3M | Tsikada 10CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1979Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 21CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1978Tsiklon-3 | Meteor-2-GVMCCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1977Tsiklon-2 | IS-A 7CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1976Proton-K/DM | EkranCCCPSUCCESS
  21. 1973Delta 1604 | IMP 8USAFSUCCESS
  22. 1972Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-1 13 (25L)CCCPSUCCESS
  23. 1968Soyuz | Soyuz 3CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1966Thor Delta E1 | INTELSAT II F-1USAFSUCCESS
  25. 1966Atlas Centaur D | Surveyor Model 3USAFSUCCESS
  26. 1962Thor Agena D | Star-RadUSAFSUCCESS
  27. 1960Thor DM-21 Agena-B | Discoverer 16USAFFAILURE

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.