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September 20 in spaceflight

19 orbital launches flew on September 20, the earliest of them in 1966, and 18 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on September 20. Below are the pictures NASA published on September 20 in 4 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

19MISSIONS

18 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1966, the most recent 2024.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

2ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1971 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

4IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for September 20, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on September 20

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.

NASA Science

2026

NASA Science

This stairway in Chile brings you only a little bit closer to heaven. But ooh, the sky above it makes you wonder. For example, you may wonder about the dark lane of our own Milky Way galaxy rising behind the expansive Atacama Desert in Chile, the band of zodiacal light on the upper left, the green and red airglow just above the horizon, the star Spica in the zodiacal light stripe, and, at the very top on the right, the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy. The Desert Staircase sculpture is in the foreground, and this image was timed to catch the picturesque peering perch just in front of the near-vertical Milky Way band. Upon close inspection of the horizon you can find, left to right, some Andes Mountains, the Licancabur volcano, and the town lights of San Pedro de Atacama. The featured wide-angle composite was captured in July 2025.Tomorrow's picture: open space

NASA · public domain

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.

© Luca Bartek — used with the credit NASA publishes

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.

© Petr Horálek — 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.

NASA · public domain

What happened on September 20

  1. 1971

    Hurricane Irene (satellite image pictured) moved into the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic, making it the first actively tracked tropical cyclone to do so.

    Hurricane Irene–Olivia ↗

  2. 2000

    The Real Irish Republican Army carried out a rocket-launcher attack on the MI6 headquarters in London, with no casualties and minimal damage recorded.

    Real Irish Republican Army ↗

Every launch on September 20

19 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2024Electron | Kinéis Killed the RadIoT Star (Kinéis 6-10)RLSUCCESS
  2. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 9-17SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2024Kuaizhou 1A | Tianqi 29-32EPSUCCESS
  4. 2024Long March 2D | Jilin-1 Wideband 02B-01 to 06CASCSUCCESS
  5. 2023Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-17SpXSUCCESS
  6. 2022Long March 2D | Yunhai-1-03CASCSUCCESS
  7. 2021Long March 7 | Tianzhou-3CASCSUCCESS
  8. 2011Proton-M Briz-M | Garpun #1 (Kosmos 2473)KhSCSUCCESS
  9. 2004GSLV | GSAT-3ISROSUCCESS
  10. 1993PSLV | IRS-P1ISROFAILURE
  11. 1990Molniya-M | Molniya-3 54LCCCPSUCCESS
  12. 1979Atlas SLV-3D Centaur | HEAO 3USAFSUCCESS
  13. 1977Proton-K/DM | EkranCCCPSUCCESS
  14. 1977Vostok 8A92M | Tselina-D 13CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1974Voskhod | Zenit-2M 51CCCPSUCCESS
  16. 1971Scout B | BICNASASUCCESS
  17. 1968Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-I 4CCCPSUCCESS
  18. 1966Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4A 36USAFSUCCESS
  19. 1966Atlas Centaur D | Surveyor 2USAFSUCCESS

FIELD KIT / LIBRARY

SPONSORED

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

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.