Skip to content
DELTA-V

ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR

December 28 in spaceflight

25 orbital launches flew on December 28, the earliest of them in 1965, and 22 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 28. Below are the pictures NASA published on December 28 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

25MISSIONS

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

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

2ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1612 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

5IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for December 28, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on December 28

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.

© Włodzimierz Bubak — 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.

© Gaurav Singh — used with the credit NASA publishes

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.

© Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter — used with the credit NASA publishes

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 December 28

  1. 1612

    Galileo Galilei became the first person to observe the planet Neptune (pictured), although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

    Galileo Galilei ↗

  2. 1956

    Chin Peng, David Marshall and Tunku Abdul Rahman meet in Baling, Malaya to try to resolve the Malayan Emergency situation.

    Chin Peng ↗

Every launch on December 28

25 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | AIST-2T 01 & 02RFSASUCCESS
  2. 2022Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 5-1SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2016Long March 2D | SuperView-1 (Gaojing 1-01 & Gaojing 1-02)CASCPARTIAL
  4. 2015Long March 3B/E | Gaofen 4CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2013Soyuz 2.1v/Volga | Aist-1VKOSUCCESS
  6. 2011Soyuz-2.1a/Fregat | 6 x Globalstar-2SSASUCCESS
  7. 2005Soyuz-FG | Giove ARFSASUCCESS
  8. 2003Proton-K/DM-2M | Ekspress AM-22KhSCSUCCESS
  9. 2001Tsiklon-3 | Strela-3 128 to 130 & Gonets 10 to 12VKSSUCCESS
  10. 1995Long March 2E | Echostar ICASCSUCCESS
  11. 1995Molniya-M | IRS-1C & SkipperPRSCSUCCESS
  12. 1994Proton | Raduga 32KhSCSUCCESS
  13. 1991Long March 3 | DFH-2A 5CASCPARTIAL
  14. 1988Molniya-M | Molniya-1T 74CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1985Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 3CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1983Molniya-M | US-K 31CCCPSUCCESS
  17. 1982Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 1CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1979Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKM 35CCCPSUCCESS
  19. 1979Proton-K/DM | Gorizont 3CCCPSUCCESS
  20. 1978Soyuz U | Zenit-4MT 15CCCPSUCCESS
  21. 1976Kosmos-3M | Parus 7CCCPSUCCESS
  22. 1976Molniya-M | Molniya-3 17LCCCPSUCCESS
  23. 1972Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 4CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1965Kosmos 65S3 | Strela-2 1CCCPSUCCESS
  25. 1965Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-K-40 1CCCPFAILURE

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.