Launches
ON RECORD2MISSIONS
2 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 2014, the most recent 2024.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
December 31 in spaceflight
2 orbital launches flew on December 31, the earliest of them in 2014, and 2 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 31. Below are the pictures NASA published on December 31 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 1951 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for December 31, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on December 31
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
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
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
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.
© Malcolm Park — used with the credit NASA publishes
What happened on December 31
1951
Cold War: The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Western Europe.
Cold War ↗2011
NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.
NASA ↗
Every launch on December 31
2 launches
ONLINE
- 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 12-6SpXSUCCESS
- 2014Long March 3A | Fengyun 2-08CASCSUCCESS
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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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.
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.