Launches
ON RECORD21MISSIONS
20 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1970, the most recent 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
November 17 in spaceflight
21 orbital launches flew on November 17, the earliest of them in 1970, and 20 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 1 spaceflight and astronomy event on November 17. Below are the pictures NASA published on November 17 in 2 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD1ENTRY
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1970 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED2IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for November 17, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on November 17
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
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
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.
NASA · public domain
What happened on November 17
1970
Luna programme: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and is released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.
Luna programme ↗
Every launch on November 17
21 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Sentinel-6BSpXSUCCESS
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Optus-X/TD7SpXSUCCESS
- 2020Vega | SEOSAT-Ingenio & TaranisASAFAILURE
- 2019Kuaizhou 1A | KL-AlphaEPSUCCESS
- 2018Antares 230 | Cygnus CRS NG-10 (S.S. John Young)NGSSSUCCESS
- 2016Soyuz-FG | Soyuz MS-03RFSASUCCESS
- 2016Ariane 5 ES | Galileo L8 (FOC FM07 & FM12-FM14)ASASUCCESS
- 2015Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat | EKS (Tundra) (Kosmos 2510)VKSSUCCESS
- 2010SpaceShipTwo | VSS Enterprise GF03VGSUCCESS
- 2007Proton-M Briz-M | Sirius 4KhSCSUCCESS
- 2006Delta II | GPS IIR-16(M)USAFSUCCESS
- 1995Proton | Gals 2KhSCSUCCESS
- 1995Ariane 44P | ISOASASUCCESS
- 1992Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 11RFSASUCCESS
- 1989Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 13CCCPSUCCESS
- 1983Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 88CCCPSUCCESS
- 1982Titan IIID | KH-11 5USAFSUCCESS
- 1981Molniya-M | Molniya-1K 51CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Soyuz U | Soyuz 20CCCPSUCCESS
- 1971Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 47CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos-3M | DS-U2-IPCCCPSUCCESS
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.
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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.
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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.
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.