Skip to content
DELTA-V

MARKED ON THIS DATE

ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR

October 31 in spaceflight

27 orbital launches flew on October 31, the earliest of them in 1962, and 26 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 31. Below are the pictures NASA published on October 31 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

27MISSIONS

26 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1962, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

3ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 2000 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

5IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 31, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on October 31

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

NASA Science

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.

© Alex Rodriguez — used with the credit NASA publishes

NASA Science

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.

© Simone Curzi — used with the credit NASA publishes

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

NASA Science

2022

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

NASA Science

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 October 31

  1. 2000

    Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been crewed continuously since then.

    Soyuz TM-31 ↗

  2. 2005

    The discovery of the Plutonian moons Nix and Hydra, based on photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope nearly five months prior, was announced.

    Moons of Pluto ↗

  3. 2014

    During a test flight, the VSS Enterprise, a Virgin Galactic experimental spaceflight test vehicle, suffers a catastrophic in-flight breakup and crashes in the Mojave Desert, California.

    VSS Enterprise ↗

Every launch on October 31

27 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 11-23SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 21CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2024Soyuz 2.1a | Kosmos 2579 (Bars-M No. 6)VKSSUCCESS
  4. 2023Long March 6A | Tianhui 5CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2022Long March 5B | MengtianCASCSUCCESS
  6. 2017Minotaur-C (Taurus XL) | 6 x SkySat & 4 x DoveOASUCCESS
  7. 2015Atlas V 401 | GPS IIF-11 (USA-265)ULASUCCESS
  8. 2014SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise PF04VGFAILURE
  9. 2012Soyuz-U | Progress M-17M (49P)RFSASUCCESS
  10. 2011Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou-8 & Shenzhou-8-GCCASCSUCCESS
  11. 2010Long March 3C | Compass-G4CASCSUCCESS
  12. 2000Soyuz-U | Soyuz TM-31RFSASUCCESS
  13. 1995Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 17RFSASUCCESS
  14. 1994Proton | ElektroKhSCSUCCESS
  15. 1986Soyuz U | Resurs-F1 17F40 61L 3CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1984Tsiklon-2 | US-A 25CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1982Soyuz U | Progress 16CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1981Molniya-M | US-K 23CCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1981Titan IIIC | Vortex 10USAFSUCCESS
  20. 1980Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 28CCCPSUCCESS
  21. 1980Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | FLTSATCOM 4USAFSUCCESS
  22. 1979Vostok 8A92M | Meteor-2 5CCCPSUCCESS
  23. 1974Kosmos-3M | DS-U2-IK 5CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1973Soyuz U | Bion 1CCCPSUCCESS
  25. 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 9CCCPSUCCESS
  26. 1968Voskhod | Zenit-4M 1CCCPSUCCESS
  27. 1962Thor DM-21 Ablestar | ANNA 1BUSAFSUCCESS

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.