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October 29 in spaceflight

22 orbital launches flew on October 29, the earliest of them in 1963, and 22 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 7 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 29. Below are the pictures NASA published on October 29 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

Launches

ON RECORD

22MISSIONS

22 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1963, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

7ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1986 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

5IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 29, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on October 29

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

Dust Shapes of the Ghost Nebula

2025

Dust Shapes of the Ghost Nebula

Do any shapes seem to jump out at you from this interstellar field of stars and dust? The jeweled expanse, filled with faint, starlight-reflecting clouds, drifts through the night in the royal constellation of Cepheus. Far from your own neighborhood on planet Earth, these ghostly apparitions lurk along the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over two light-years across and brighter than the other spooky chimeras, VdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the Ghost Nebula, seen across the middle of the featured image. Within the reflection nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early stages of star formation.

© Kent Wood — used with the credit NASA publishes

NGC 602: Stars Versus Pillars from Webb

2024

NGC 602: Stars Versus Pillars from Webb

The stars are destroying the pillars. More specifically, some of the newly formed stars in the image center are emitting light so energetic that is evaporating the gas and dust in the surrounding pillars. Simultaneously, the pillars themselves are still trying to form new stars. The whole setting is the star cluster NGC 602, and this new vista was taken by the Webb Space Telescope in multiple infrared colors. In comparison, a roll-over image shows the same star cluster in visible light, taken previously by the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 602 is located near the perimeter of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy. At the estimated distance of the SMC, the featured picture spans about 200 light-years. A tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible -- mostly around the edges -- that are at least hundreds of millions of light-years beyond.

NASA · public domain

A Partial Lunar Eclipse

2023

A Partial Lunar Eclipse

What's happened to the Moon? Within the last day, part of the Moon moved through the Earth's shadow. This happens about once or twice a year, but not every month since the Moon's orbit around the Earth is slightly tilted. Pictured here, the face of a full Hunter's Moon is shown twice from Italy during this partial lunar eclipse. On the left, most of the Moon appears overexposed except for the eclipsed bottom right, which shows some familiar lunar surface details. In contrast, on the right, most of the (same) Moon appears normally exposed, with the exception of the bottom right, which now appears dark. All lunar eclipses are visible from the half of the Earth facing the Moon at the time of the eclipse, but this eclipse was visible specifically from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, clouds permitting. In April, a total solar eclipse will be visible from North America. Album: Selected partial lunar eclipse images sent in to APOD

© Orazio Mezzio — used with the credit NASA publishes

LDN 673: Dark Clouds in Aquila

2022

LDN 673: Dark Clouds in Aquila

Part of a dark expanse that splits the crowded plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the Aquila Rift arcs through planet Earth's skies near bright star Altair. In eerie silhouette against the Milky Way's faint starlight, its dusty molecular clouds likely contain raw material to form hundreds of thousands of stars and astronomers search the dark clouds for telltale signs of star birth. This telescopic close-up looks toward the region at a fragmented Aquila dark cloud complex identified as LDN 673, stretching across a field of view slightly wider than the full moon. In the scene, visible indications of energetic outflows associated with young stars include the small red tinted nebulosity RNO 109 above and right of center, and Herbig-Haro object HH32 below. These dark clouds might look scary, but they're estimated to be some 600 light-years away. At that distance, this field of view spans about 7 light-years.

© Capella Observatory Team — used with the credit NASA publishes

Haunting the Cepheus Flare

2021

Haunting the Cepheus Flare

Spooky shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus. Of course, the shapes are cosmic dust clouds visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from your own neighborhood, they lurk above the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over 2 light-years across and brighter than most of the other ghostly apparitions, vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the Ghost Nebula, seen at the right of the starry field of view. Inside the nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early stages of star formation. With the eerie hue of dust reflecting bluish light from hot young stars of NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula stands out against the dark just left of center. In the broad telescopic frame, these fertile interstellar dust fields stretch almost seven full moons across the sky.

© Leo Shatz — used with the credit NASA publishes

What happened on October 29

  1. 1986

    British prime minister Margaret Thatcher officially opened the M25, one of Britain's busiest motorways.

    Margaret Thatcher ↗

  2. 1986

    British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway.

    Margaret Thatcher ↗

  3. 1991

    Galileo became the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid when it made a flyby of 951 Gaspra.

    Galileo (spacecraft) ↗

  4. 1991

    The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.

    Galileo (spacecraft) ↗

  5. 1998

    At 77 years old, former astronaut John Glenn (pictured) returned to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-95 mission.

    John Glenn ↗

  6. 1998

    Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time.

    Space Shuttle Discovery ↗

  7. 1998

    ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with live coverage of the launch of the STS-95 space shuttle mission.

    ATSC standards ↗

Every launch on October 29

22 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-37SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2024Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 19CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 7-6SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2022Long March 2D | Shiyan 20CCASCSUCCESS
  5. 2018H-IIA 202 | KhalifaSat & GOSAT-2MHISUCCESS
  6. 2018Long March 2C | CFOSATCASCSUCCESS
  7. 2014Atlas V 401 | GPS IIF-8 (USA-258)ULASUCCESS
  8. 2014Soyuz 2.1a | Progress M-25M (57P)RFSASUCCESS
  9. 2013Long March 2C | Yaogan 18CASCSUCCESS
  10. 2009Ariane 5 ECA | NSS-12 & Thor 6ASASUCCESS
  11. 2008Long March 3B/E | Simon BolivarCASCSUCCESS
  12. 2004Proton-K/DM-2M | Ekspress AM-1KhSCSUCCESS
  13. 2000Ariane 44LP | Europe*Star 1ASASUCCESS
  14. 1998Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-95LSOCSUCCESS
  15. 1992Kosmos-3M | Parus 78NPSUCCESS
  16. 1991Ariane 44L | Intelsat 601ASASUCCESS
  17. 1983Tsiklon-2 | US-P 17CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1976Kosmos-3M | Parus 6CCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1975Tsiklon-2 | US-P 2CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1974Titan IIID | KH-9 9USAFSUCCESS
  21. 1973Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 5CCCPSUCCESS
  22. 1963Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-5 10USAFSUCCESS

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.

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