Launches
ON RECORD15MISSIONS
13 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1961, the most recent 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
November 22 in spaceflight
15 orbital launches flew on November 22, the earliest of them in 1961, and 13 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on November 22. Below are the pictures NASA published on November 22 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1942 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for November 22, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on November 22
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2025
Dione and Rhea Ring Transit
Seen to the left of Saturn's banded planetary disk, small icy moons Dione and Rhea are caught passing in front of the gas giant's extensive ring system in this sharp telescopic snapshot. The remarkable image was recorded on November 20, when Saturn's rings were nearly edge-on when viewed from planet Earth. In fact, every 13 to 16 years the view from planet Earth aligns with Saturn's ring plane to produce a series of ring plane crossings. During a ring plane crossing, the interplanetary edge-on perspective makes the thin but otherwise bright rings seem to disappear. Saturn itself was close to the Sun on the sky and difficult to see this year, during the last ring plane crossing on March 23. But by November 23rd Saturn's rings will have reached a minimum angle for now, at their narrowest for viewing from planet Earth, and then start to widen again. Of course, Dione and Rhea orbit Saturn near the ring plane once every 2.7 and 4.5 days respectively, while the next series of Saturn ring plane crossings as seen from Earth will begin again in 2038.
© Christopher Go — used with the credit NASA publishes
2024
The Medusa Nebula
Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is the faint one near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and to the left. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.
© Bruno Rota Sargi — used with the credit NASA publishes
2023
IC 342: Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis
Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis. A sprawling island universe, IC 342 would otherwise be a prominent galaxy in our night sky, but it is hidden from clear view and only glimpsed through the veil of stars, gas and dust clouds along the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy. Even though IC 342's light is dimmed and reddened by intervening cosmic clouds, this sharp telescopic image traces the galaxy's own obscuring dust, young star clusters, and glowing star forming regions along spiral arms that wind far from the galaxy's core. IC 342 has undergone a recent burst of star formation activity and is close enough to have gravitationally influenced the evolution of the local group of galaxies and the Milky Way.
© Steve Cannistra — used with the credit NASA publishes
2022
A Double Star Cluster in Perseus
Few star clusters are this close to each other. Visible to the unaided eye from dark sky areas, it was cataloged in 130 BC by Greek astronomer Hipparchus. Some 7,000 light-years away, this pair of open star clusters is also an easy binocular target, a striking starfield in the northern constellation of the mythical Greek hero Perseus. Now known as h and chi Persei, or NGC 869 (above right) and NGC 884, the clusters themselves are separated by only a few hundred light-years and contain stars much younger and hotter than the Sun. In addition to being physically close together, the clusters' ages based on their individual stars are similar - evidence that both clusters were likely a product of the same star-forming region.
© Tommy Lease — used with the credit NASA publishes
2021
Lunar Eclipse over a Skyscraper
Why is the Moon on top of this building? Planning. It took the astrophotographer careful planning -- including figuring out exactly where to place the camera and exactly when to take the shot -- to create this striking superposition. The single image featured was taken in the early morning hours of November 19, near the peak of the partial lunar eclipse that was occurring as the Moon passed through the Earth's shadow. At this time, almost the entire Moon -- 99.1 percent of its area -- was in the darkest part of the Earth's shadow. The building is the Gran Torre Santiago building in Chile, the tallest building in South America. Although the entire eclipse lasted an impressive six hours, this image had to be taken within just a few seconds to get the alignment right -- the Earth's rotation soon moved the building out of alignment. The next Earth-Moon eclipse will be a total eclipse of the Sun that will occur on December 4 -- but only be visible from the bottom of our world. APOD Editor (RJN) Online Monday: NASA's Best Space Images (& Videos) Notable APOD Submissions: Lunar Eclipse of 2021 November 19
© Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN) — used with the credit NASA publishes
What happened on November 22
1942
World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army is surrounded.
Battle of Stalingrad ↗
1989
NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-33, a classified mission for the United States Department of Defense.
NASA ↗
2010
During the Cambodian water festival, a stampede in Koh Pich, Phnom Penh, kills 347 people.
Bon Om Touk ↗
Every launch on November 22
15 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-79SpXSUCCESS
- 2024New Shepard | NS-28BOSUCCESS
- 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-29SpXSUCCESS
- 2021Long March 4C | Gaofen-3 02CASCSUCCESS
- 2016Long March 3C | Tianlian 1-04CASCSUCCESS
- 2013Rokot / Briz-KM | Swarm A, B, CELSSUCCESS
- 1999Soyuz-U-PVB | Globalstar 29,34,39,61RFSASUCCESS
- 1998Delta II | BONUM-1USAFSUCCESS
- 1992Delta II | GPS IIA-7USAFSUCCESS
- 1991Proton | Potok 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Tsiklon-3 | Tselina-D 51CCCPSUCCESS
- 1972Scout D-1 | ESRO 4ESROSUCCESS
- 1969Thor Delta M | Skynet IAUSAFSUCCESS
- 1967Proton / UR-500 K/D | Soyuz 7K-L1 No.5LCCCPFAILURE
- 1961Atlas LV-3A | Samos 4USAFFAILURE
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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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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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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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.
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