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November 9 in spaceflight

15 orbital launches flew on November 9, the earliest of them in 1963, and 14 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 5 spaceflight and astronomy events on November 9. Below are the pictures NASA published on November 9 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

15MISSIONS

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

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

5ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1851 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

5IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for November 9, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on November 9

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.

NASA · public domain

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.

© Voyager — 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 November 9

  1. 1851

    Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.

    Kentucky ↗

  2. 1942

    Battle of Stalingrad: German forces of the 6th Army under general Friedrich Paulus reach the river bank of the Volga, capturing 90% of the ruined city of Stalingrad and splitting the remaining Soviet forces into two narrow pockets.

    Battle of Stalingrad ↗

  3. 1967

    Apollo program: NASA launches the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft, atop the first Saturn V rocket, from Florida's Cape Kennedy.

    Apollo program ↗

  4. 1979

    Cold War: Nuclear false alarm: The NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland, detect a purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early-warning radars, the alert is cancelled.

    Cold War ↗

  5. 2005

    The Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

    Venus Express ↗

Every launch on November 9

15 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-51SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2025Kinetica 1 | Chutian-2 01 & 02CASSUCCESS
  3. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 9-10SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2024Long March 2C | PIESAT-2 01-04CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2023Long March 3B/E | ChinaSat 6ECASCSUCCESS
  6. 2021Epsilon | RAISE-2 & othersJAXASUCCESS
  7. 2016Long March 11 | Xiaoxiang-1, XPNAV-1 & 3 others.CASCSUCCESS
  8. 2011Long March 4B | Yaogan 12 & Tianxun-1CASCSUCCESS
  9. 2005Soyuz-FG | Venus ExpressRFSASUCCESS
  10. 1997Delta II | Iridium 38 to 43USAFSUCCESS
  11. 1985Molniya-M | US-K 45CCCPSUCCESS
  12. 1972Thor Burner 2A | DSAP-5B F3USAFSUCCESS
  13. 1970Scout B | OFONASASUCCESS
  14. 1967Saturn V | Apollo 4NASASUCCESS
  15. 1963Thor SLV-2 Agena D | KH-4 24 & RM 5USAFFAILURE

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.