The return capsule of Chang'e 5-T1

A view of the Moon's far side and Earth from Chang'e 5-T1

Chang'e 5-T1 mission was launched #OTD 2014. It was designed as a test of the strategy planned for the Chang'e 5 lunar sample return mission. It comprised a bus and a sample return capsule, which were sent to loop around the Moon and head back to Earth, simulating a return from the Moon with samples

Keck I and II Telescopes atop Mauna Kea

#OTD in 1996, the Keck II Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, saw its first light (the Keck I Telescope saw its first light in 1990). Both telescopes have 10-metre aperture primary mirrors composed of 36 segments.

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft undergoing pre-launch tests. Credit: ISRO

PSLV-C11 launch vehicle with Chandrayaan-1 lifting off from Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota Range. Credit: ISRO

Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to Moon, was launched successfully #OTD in 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon

Venera 9 lander with shock absorbing lander ring, spherical pressurized instrument compartment, and upper disk drag brake with cylindrical wound antenna 'top hat'. A camera pod can be seen at right under the disk brake next to the 'paintroller' gamma-ray densitometer folded up against the sphere. The spectrophotometer housing is under the disk at the left. Floodlights are attached to the shock absorber struts to illuminate the fields of view of the two cameras. An anemometer for surface winds is mounted on the top of the disk at left. The outer insulating layers are removed. The two severed pipes on the left are for pre-cooling by the orbiter before separation. Credit: NPO Lavochkin

Venera 9 and Venera 10 descent sequence

#OTD in 1975, Soviet Venera 9 became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Venus, and its lander successfully transmitted images of the Venus surface, the first images ever sent back from the surface of another planet.

Luna 12 orbiter diagram. Credit: NPO Lavochkin

Image of the lunar surface taken by Luna 12. Credit: Don P. Mitchell, http://mentallandscape.com

Luna 12, Soviet lunar orbiting spacecraft, was launched #OTD in 1966, to complete the mission that Luna 11 had failed to accomplish, i.e., to take high resolution photos of the Moon’s surface from lunar orbit. It was identical to Luna 11 except for the redesigned propulsion system.

Artist’s impression of the BepiColombo spacecraft in cruise configuration approaching Mercury

BepiColombo lifts off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou.

BepiColombo spacecraft, a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was launched #OTD in2018. The spacecraft is using nine planetary flybys to help steer itself into orbit around Mercury: one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury.

7K-L1 spacecraft (Zond) drawing. Credit: RKK Energiya

Zond 8 flew by the Moon on October 24, 1970 and returned to Earth with high quality photographs, some from as close as 1,350 km. Images were shot with the 400 mm AFA-BAM camera, on 13 by 18-centimeter frames of isopanchromatic film. A session of 20 full-Moon pictures was followed by a session of 78 lunar-surface pictures, including 17 shots of Earth over the lunar horizon. Credit: Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiK); caption by Don Mitchell: http://mentallandscape.com

#OTD in 1970, Zond 8, the last Soviet circumlunar mission, was launched. On October 24, the spacecraft flew past the Moon at a distance of 1,110 km and took black-and-white photographs of the lunar surface. It splashed down safely in the Indian Ocean on October 27.

#OTD in 2020, OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched down on the surface of the asteroid 101955 Bennu and collected a sample using an extendable arm. The spacecraft's sample return capsule landed on Earth on September 24, 2023.

1I/ʻOumuamua, imaged with the 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands on 28 October 2017, is seen as a point of light in the centre of the image. Background stars appear linear because the telescope is tracking the moving object. Credit: Alan Fitzsimmons (Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast), Isaac Newton Group

Artist’s view of the potential, pancake-like shape of ‘Oumuamua. Credit: William K. Hartmann

#OTD in 2017, 1I/ʻOumuamua, the first known interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System, was discovered by Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakalā Observatory, Hawaii.
beyondearthsky.blogspot.com/2025/10/oumu...

Artist's impression of ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter releasing the Schiaparelli lander

#OTD in 2016, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter successfully entered orbit around Mars to search for trace gases in the Martian atmosphere such as methane, water vapor, nitrogen oxides and acetylene, but its Schiaparelli demonstration lander crashed on Martian surface.

Mariner V spacecraft. Credit: NASA

Schematic of Mariner 5’s trajectory during its flyby of Venus. Credit: NASA

#OTD in 1967, Mariner V spacecraft flew by Venus with the closest approach at a range of 4,094 kilometers above the surface of the planet. It made observations of the structure of the planet's atmosphere and its radiation and magnetic field environment.
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Galileo spacecraft being prepared for mating with the Inertial Upper Stage booster

Galileo spacecraft and its attached Inertial Upper Stage booster are released from the payload bay of Atlantis on October 18, 1989

Galileo spacecraft was launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, mission STS-34 #OTD 1989. The mission consisted of two spacecraft – the orbiter became the first spacecraft to be placed into orbit around Jupiter, and the atmospheric probe was the first to enter the planet's atmosphere on Dec. 7, 1995.

Venera 4 spacecraft, without the thermal blankets. Credit: NPO Lavochkin

Venera 4 descent capsule. Credit: NPO Lavochkin

Venera 4 entered the Venusian atmosphere on October 18, 1967, and became the first probe to transmit data from the atmosphere of another planet. The descent capsule reached an altitude of 27 kilometers above the planet's surface, where it succumbed to the atmospheric pressure and temperature.

Artist's impression of a Ranger Block II spacecraft

Ranger V designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface prior to impacting on the Moon and to rough-land a seismometer capsule, was launched #OTD in 1962. Due to an unknown malfunction, the spacecraft ran out of power and ceased operation after 8 hours. It passed within 725 km of the Moon.

John Russell Hind c. 1860s.

Image of the asteroid 8 Flora. Credit: VSO Very Large Telescope SPHERE/ZIMPOL team

Asteroid 8 Flora was discovered by English astronomer John Russell Hind at London #OTD in 1847. Flora is an S-type main-belt asteroid with a diameter of about 146 km. It orbits the Sun with a period of 3.27 years.

Artist's impression of Integral – ESA's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory. Credit: ESA/D. Ducros

Integral, a European Space Agency's space observatory designed to study celestial gamma-ray sources was launched #OTD in 2002. Integral was the first space observatory that could simultaneously observe objects in gamma rays, X-rays, and visible light. The science mission ended on February 28, 2025.

Artist's impression showing the Lucy spacecraft passing one of the Trojan Asteroids near Jupiter. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

#OTD in 2021, the Lucy spacecraft, designed to make flyby observations of eight Trojan asteroids – the asteroids orbiting ahead of or behind Jupiter – and three main belt asteroids, during seven flybies, was launched.

The first image of the returning Halley's Comet recorded on October 16, 1982 with the 200-inch Hale telescope at Palomar Mountain. Credit: David Jewitt and G. Edward Danielson, NASA/JPL-Caltech

Comet 1P/Halley as taken March 8, 1986 by W. Liller, Easter Island, part of the International Halley Watch (IHW) Large Scale Phenomena Network. Credit: NASA/W. Liller

#OTD in 1982 the first image of the returning Halley's Comet (1P/Halley) was recorded with the 200-inch Hale telescope at Palomar Mountain. Caltech astronomers David Jewitt and G. Edward Danielson found the comet when it was still beyond the orbit of Saturn, more than 1.6 billion kilometers from Sun

Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut

Launch of Shenzhou 5

#OTD in 2003, Shenzhou 5, the first Chinese human spaceflight, with astronaut Yang Liwei, was launched. The spacecraft orbited the Earth 14 times. The launch made China the third country to independently launch a person into space, after the Soviet Union and the United States.

Portrait of Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier. Engraving by Le Grand, 1784. Credit: Smithsonian Libraries

The tethered flight of Montgolfière balloon on October 19, 1783. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France

#OTD in 1783, the first confirmed human flight was accomplished by Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier in a tethered Montgolfière No 7 hot air balloon, from the yard of the workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, one of the suburbs of Paris.
beyondearthsky.blogspot.com/2025/10/firs...

Europa Clipper was launched #OTD in 2024. The spacecraft will reach Jupiter in April 2030 and perform dozens of close flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon.

Chuck Yeager next to experimental aircraft Bell X-1 #1 "Glamorous Glennis"

Bell X-1 46-062 in flight

#OTD in 1947, U.S. Air Force test pilot Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager (1923–2020) flew the experimental Bell XS-1 #46-062, rocket plane, named "Glamorous Glennis", and broke the sound barrier for the first time, reaching a speed of Mach 1.06 over Muroc Army Airfield in the Mojave Desert in California.

Artist's impression of Psyche spacecraft near the mission's target, the metal asteroid Psyche. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin

Psyche spacecraft to the metallic main belt asteroid 16 Psyche was launched #OTD in 2023. Psyche will begin its prime mission in August 2029. It will spend about two years orbiting the asteroid to take pictures, map the surface, and collect data to determine its composition.

The crew of Voskhod 1 spacecraft

The launch of Voskhod 1

Voskhod 1 with three cosmonauts: Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov was launched #OTD in 1964. It was the first spaceflight with multi-member crew.

The Large Binocular Telescope

The Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham, Arizona, saw its first light #OTD in 2005. With two 8.4-meter diameter mirrors, it forms the largest single-mount telescope in the world, providing a collecting area equal to a single 11.8-meter mirror and the resolution of a 22.8-meter-wide one.

False color Hubble Space Telescope image of Proxima Centauri. The bright lines are diffraction spikes.

#OTD in 1915 Robert Innes published the discovery of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. Proxima Centauri lies just 4.2 light-years from Earth, but is not visible to the naked eye. It is actually part of a triple star system with two companions, Alpha Centauri A and B.

Apollo 7 crew

Launch of Apollo 7 mission

Apollo 7, the first crewed flight of an Apollo spacecraft, launched on the Saturn IB #OTD in 1968, with astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donn F. Eisele, and Walter Cunningham on board. The 10-day mission tested hardware and procedures essential for the flights to the Moon.

Nick Hague (above) and Aleksey Ovchinin (below), pictured at Pad 1/5 on Baikonur before Soyuz MS-10 launch.

The failure of of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle boosters.

Soyuz MS-10 spaceflight with cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and astronaut Nick Hague on board was aborted after launch due to a failure of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle boosters #OTD in 2018. The crew returned safely to Earth 19 minutes 41 seconds after the launch.

Project Able-1 lunar probe. Credit: NASA

Pioneer I lift-off from Pad 17A at Cape Canaveral. Credit: USAF

Able 2, the second in the series of probes with the ambitious goal to orbit the Moon was launched #OTD in 1958. The mission was officially named Pioneer. The probe reached altitude of 113,810 km and reentered Earth’s atmosphere 43 hours 17 min after launch.
beyondearthsky.blogspot.com/2025/10/2.html

Venera 15 or Venera 16 spacecraft during tests. Credit: NPO Lavochkin

Fragment of the Venera radar map of Venus with Anahit and Pomona Coronas. Credit: NPO Lavochkin

Venera 15, the first of two Soviet radar imaging orbiter designed to make detailed radar maps of Venus' surface at a resolution of 1 to 2 km, entered orbit around Venus #OTD in 1983. Last contact was made with the spacecraft on January 5, 1985.