Skip to content
DELTA-V

MARKED ON THIS DATE

ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR

December 21 in spaceflight

43 orbital launches flew on December 21, the earliest of them in 1961, and 39 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 6 spaceflight and astronomy events on December 21. Below are the pictures NASA published on December 21 in 4 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

DATE

Launches

ON RECORD

43MISSIONS

39 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1961, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

6ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1844 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

4IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for December 21, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on December 21

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

A Year in Sunsets

2024

A Year in Sunsets

A year in sunsets, from April 2023 to March 2024, track along the western horizon in these stacked panoramic views. The well-planned sequence is constructed of images recorded near the 21st day of the indicated month from the same location overlooking Cairo, Egypt. But for any location on planet Earth the yearly extreme northern (picture right) and southern limits of the setting Sun mark the solstice days. The word solstice is from Latin for "Sun" and "stand still". On the solstice date the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily path through the sky appears to pause and reverse direction in its annual celestial journey. Of course the Sun reaches a stand still on today's date. The 21 December 2024 solstice at 09:21 UTC is the moment of the Sun's southernmost declination, the start of astronomical winter in the north and summer in the south.

© Wael Omar — used with the credit NASA publishes

Three Galaxies and a Comet

2023

Three Galaxies and a Comet

Distant galaxies abound in this one degree wide field of view toward the southern constellation Grus (The Crane). But the three spiral galaxies at the lower right are quite striking. In fact, all three galaxies are grouped about 70 million light years away and sometimes known as the Grus Triplet. They share the pretty telescopic frame, recorded on December 13, with the comet designated C/2020 V2 ZTF. Now outbound from the inner Solar System and swinging below the ecliptic plane in a hyperbolic orbit, the comet was about 29 light-minutes from our fair planet in this image. And though this comet ZTF was brighter when it was closest to the Sun last May and closest to Earth in September of 2023, it still shines in telescopes pointed toward southern night skies, remaining almost as bright as the Grus Triplet galaxies.

© Dan Bartlett — used with the credit NASA publishes

Sun Halo at Sixty-three Degrees North

2022

Sun Halo at Sixty-three Degrees North

Happy Solstice! Today is the December solstice, marking an astronomical beginning of summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the north. On its yearly trek through planet Earth's skies, at this solstice the Sun reaches its southern most declination, 23.5 degrees south, at 21:48 UTC. About 4 days ago the Sun was near this seasonal southern limit and so only just above the horizon at local noon from Ostersund in central Sweden. This view looking over the far northern lakeside city finds the midday Sun with a beautiful solar ice halo. Naturally occurring atmospheric ice crystals can produce the tantalizing halo displays, refracting and reflecting the sunlight through their hexagonal geometry. Still, with the Sun low and near the horizon in the clear sky, likely sources of the ice crystals producing this intense halo are snow cannons. Operating at a local ski area, the snowmaking machines create a visible plume at the top of the nearby island Froson toward the right side of the panorama.

© Goran Strand — used with the credit NASA publishes

Solstice Sun and Milky Way

2021

Solstice Sun and Milky Way

Welcome to December's solstice, first day of winter in the north and summer for the southern hemisphere. Astronomical markers of the seasons, solstice and equinox dates are based on the Sun's place in its annual journey along the ecliptic, through planet Earth's sky. At this solstice, the Sun reaches its maximum southern declination of -23.5 degrees today at 15:59 UTC, while its right ascension coordinate on the celestial sphere is 18 hours. That puts the Sun in the constellation Sagittarius in a direction near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. In fact, if you could see today's Solstice Sun against faint background stars and nebulae (that's really hard to do, especially in the daytime ...) your view might look something like this composited panorama. To make it, images of our fair galaxy were taken under dark Namibian night skies, then stitched together in a panoramic view. From a snapshot made on 2015 December 21, the Sun was digitally overlayed as a brilliant star at today's northern winter solstice position, close to the center of the Milky Way. Discovery + Outreach: Graduate student research position open for APOD

© Stefan Seip — used with the credit NASA publishes

What happened on December 21

  3. 1968

    Apollo 8 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a trajectory to the Moon; its crew (pictured) became the first humans to visit another celestial body.

    Apollo 8 ↗

  4. 1968

    Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.

    Apollo program ↗

  5. 2020

    A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurs, with the two planets separated in the sky by 0.1 degrees. This is the closest conjunction between the two planets since 1623.

    Great conjunction ↗

  6. 2022

    A Vega C rocket carrying two Pléiades Neo satellites fails after liftoff.

    Vega C ↗

Every launch on December 21

43 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Electron | The Wisdom God Guides (iQPS Launch 6)RLSUCCESS
  2. 2024Electron | Owl The Way Up (StriX Launch 6)RLSUCCESS
  3. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Bandwagon 2 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)SpXSUCCESS
  4. 2023Soyuz 2.1b | Kosmos 2573 (Bars-M No. 5?)VKSSUCCESS
  5. 2022Vega-C | Pléiades Neo 5 & 6ASAFAILURE
  6. 2021Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-24SpXSUCCESS
  7. 2018Long March 11 | Hongyun-1CASCSUCCESS
  8. 2018Proton-M/Briz-M | Blagovest N13L (Kosmos 2533)KhSCSUCCESS
  9. 2016Ariane 5 ECA | Star One D1 & JCSAT-15ASASUCCESS
  10. 2016Long March 2D | Tansat (CarbonSat)CASCSUCCESS
  11. 2015Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS (62P)RFSASUCCESS
  12. 2011Soyuz FG | Soyuz TMA-03MRFSASUCCESS
  13. 2007Ariane 5 GS | RASCOM-QAF 1 & Horizons-2ASASUCCESS
  14. 2005Ariane 5 GS | INSAT-4A, Meteosat 9ASASUCCESS
  15. 2005Kosmos-3M | Strela-3M 1NPSUCCESS
  16. 2005Soyuz U | Progress M-55RFSASUCCESS
  17. 2004Delta IV Heavy | Demosat and 3CS-1 & 2BAPARTIAL
  18. 2003Delta II | GPS IIR-10USAFSUCCESS
  19. 2001Tsiklon-2 | US-PM 11RFSASUCCESS
  20. 1999Taurus 2110 | Arirang-1 & ACRIMSatOSCSUCCESS
  21. 1992Long March 2E | Optus B2CASCFAILURE
  22. 1990Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 15CCCPSUCCESS
  23. 1987Molniya-M | US-K 55CCCPSUCCESS
  24. 1987Soyuz-U2 | Soyuz TM-4CCCPSUCCESS
  25. 1984Proton-K/D-1 | Vega-2CCCPSUCCESS
  26. 1983Molniya-M | Molniya-3 35LCCCPSUCCESS
  27. 1982Atlas E | DMSP-5D2 F6USAFSUCCESS
  28. 1977Tsiklon-2 | IS-A 8CCCPSUCCESS
  29. 1974Molniya-M | Molniya-2 11CCCPSUCCESS
  30. 1973Voskhod | Zenit-4MK 19CCCPSUCCESS
  31. 1972Titan 24B | KH-8 37USAFSUCCESS
  32. 1972Kosmos-3M | Sfera 9CCCPSUCCESS
  33. 1968Saturn V | Apollo 8NASASUCCESS
  34. 1966Atlas SLV-3 | PRIME 1USAFSUCCESS
  35. 1966Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-U2-D 1CCCPSUCCESS
  36. 1966Molniya-M | Luna-13CCCPSUCCESS
  37. 1965Titan IIIC | OV2-3USAFSUCCESS
  38. 1965Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-P1-Yu 4CCCPSUCCESS
  39. 1964Thor SLV-2A Agena D | Quill 1USAFSUCCESS
  40. 1964Thor Delta C | Explorer 26USAFSUCCESS
The rest of them3 MORE
  1. 1963Thor SLV-2A Agena D | KH-4 26USAFSUCCESS
  2. 1963Thor Delta B | Tiros 8USAFSUCCESS
  3. 1961Kosmos-2I 63S1 | DS-1 2RVSN RFFAILURE

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.