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December 3 in spaceflight

26 orbital launches flew on December 3, the earliest of them in 1965, and 25 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 9 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 3. Pick another date to see what happened on it.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

26MISSIONS

25 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1965, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

9ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1799 onward.

Pictures from this date

NONE

0IMAGES

No Astronomy Picture of the Day is available for this date.

What happened on December 3

  1. 1799

    War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Wiesloch: Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Sztáray defeats the French at Wiesloch.

    War of the Second Coalition ↗

  2. 1904

    Himalia, Jupiter's largest irregular moon, was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in California.

    Himalia (moon) ↗

  3. 1904

    The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.

    Moons of Jupiter ↗

  4. 1965

    Soviet Union, Space probe of the Luna program, called Luna 8, is launched, but crashes on the Moon.

    Soviet Union ↗

  5. 1973

    Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

    Pioneer program ↗

  6. 1999

    NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before it reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.

    NASA ↗

  7. 1999

    NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

    NASA ↗

  8. 2005

    XCOR Aerospace makes the first crewed rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California.

    XCOR Aerospace ↗

  9. 2014

    The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid to collect rock samples.

    JAXA ↗

Every launch on December 3

26 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Zhuque-3 | Demo FlightLSSUCCESS
  2. 2024Long March 3B/E | TJSW-13CASCSUCCESS
  3. 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-31SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2020Chang'e | Chang'e 5CNSASUCCESS
  5. 2020Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | Gonets-M30, Gonets-M31, Gonets-M32VKSSUCCESS
  6. 2018Falcon 9 Block 5 | Spaceflight SSO-ASpXSUCCESS
  7. 2018Soyuz-FG | Soyuz MS-11RFSASUCCESS
  8. 2017Long March 2D | LKW-1 (Land Survey Satellite-1)CASCSUCCESS
  9. 2016SpaceShipTwo | VSS Unity GF01VGSUCCESS
  10. 2015Vega | LISA PathfinderASASUCCESS
  11. 2014H-IIA 202 | Hayabusa-2MHISUCCESS
  12. 2013Falcon 9 v1.1 | SES-8SpXSUCCESS
  13. 2012Zenit 3SL | Eutelsat 70BSLSUCCESS
  14. 1999Ariane 40 | Helios 1BASASUCCESS
  15. 1985Soyuz U | Zenit-8 25CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1982Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 70CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1981Tsiklon-3 | Tselina-D 32CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1975Voskhod | Zenit-2M 63CCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1971Tsiklon-2 | I2P 8CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1971Voskhod | Zenit-2M 24CCCPFAILURE
  21. 1970Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 4CCCPSUCCESS
  22. 1969Voskhod | Zenit-2M 6CCCPSUCCESS
  23. 1968Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 17CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1967Voskhod | Zenit-4 37CCCPSUCCESS
  25. 1966Voskhod | Zenit-4 25CCCPSUCCESS
  26. 1965Molniya 8K78 | Luna-8CCCPSUCCESS

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.

    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

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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.