While we seem to miss rocket launches taking place on Halloween in recent years, the day hasn’t always been bare of space goodies. Back in 2015, a spooky asteroid paid a visit for some intergalactic trick or treat.

Ten years ago today, Astronaut Chris Hadfield released a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” entirely filmed aboard the International Space Station. He released the song the same day he relinquished command of the International Space Station, and he returned to Earth in a Soyuz capsule the following day.

It’s a hot and humid summer morning. On July 16th, 1969 the silence was broken by the sound of five F-1 engines roaring to life. Apollo 11 lifted off at 9:32 AM EDT on a mission of a lifetime. On July 20th, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are about to land on the Moon.

How on Earth (err.. Mars?) has it been a full year since NASA’s latest Mars rover landed on the surface of Mars!

The rover launched back on July 30, 2020 on an Atlas V 541 rocket and traveled for over 200 days before landing on the surface of the Red Planet.

On January 5, 2005, the Palomar Observatory-based team led by Mike Brown discovered a large world, later known as Eris, after systematically scanning for large outer Solar System bodies for several years. Unfortunately for Pluto, this was the beginning of the end for its official planet title.

It’s crazy to think it’s already been one year since SpaceX‘s first high-altitude Starship flight, but here we are. Starship SN8 might not have landed in one piece, but the baby step led to SN15’s landing several months later.

Today we’ve almost become numb to the stunning high-quality satellite images we get of our planet daily. But prior to 1946, people had never seen the Earth from space.

Today marks the day when the Outer Space Treaty, signed by the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union in January of that same year, was enacted, calming fears of space-based nuclear weapon systems.

Today is a day that changed history. With one small sphere, the Soviet Union spurred a new space race, one that led to the opening of NASA less than a year later. On this day, in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into low Earth orbit. Americans were amazed and terrified as they heard the beeps and looked overhead to see the first artificial satellite.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration wasn’t built in a day. Ever since the launch of Sputnik hearings and meetings began about the formation of a new agency. The creation of NASA may have been signed into law on July 29, 1958; but on October 1, NASA officially opened for business.

Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery took flight on this day in 1988. It was the first flight of the Space Shuttle following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986.

The powerhouse commercial launch provider we know today has come a long way since it opened its doors in 2002. On this day back in 2008, on its fourth attempt, SpaceX launched Ratsat into space on its Falcon 1 rocket.

In the last two years, we have seen SpaceX go from building circular rings in a dirt patch to having a full rocket factory in South Texas. On this day 2 years ago their first creation, Starhopper, makes its famed 150-meter flight.

On this day 15 years ago, children across the world had to come up with a new way to remember the names of the planets in the solar system. No more pizzas were coming from our educated mothers, instead it would be… nachos?

The Mars 2020 mission consisted of two main payloads, the Perseverance rover and a technology demonstration helicopter called Ingenuity. Perseverance was the 6th rover ever sent to the Martian surface and was based on the successful design of the 2011 Curiosity rover. On this day, Mars 2020 launched to space.

Space Shuttle Atlantis currently resides in an exhibit building at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, its permanent home. Back on this day in 2011, Atlantis would fly for the last time. STS-135 marked the end of the Space Shuttle Program.

SpaceX launched the Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) mission in early June 25th, 2019. STP-2 was launched on the third flight of Falcon Heavy, reusing the side boosters from the Arabsat-6A launch earlier that year.

On this day 17 years ago the age of privately funded space ventures reached a major milestone with Mojave Aerospace Ventures’ SpaceShipOne flight. Mojave Aerospace Ventures is a joint venture between Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites, largely funded by Paul Allen. This marked the first privately funded and developed crewed spaceflight and also led won Mojave Aerospace Ventures the Ansari X Prize.

Today marks an important milestone in spaceflight history. For the first time on the Space Shuttle, a woman would fly and bring motivation to little girls everywhere to join the STEM industry.

On this day in 1965, Ranger 9 impacted the Moon at 14:08:19 UTC with a relative speed of 2.67 km/s (5,972 mph). This impact concluded the 3-day mission of Ranger 9 and the overall Ranger program. This mission gathered important data needed for the later Surveyor program, and ultimately the Apollo program.

On February 1, 2003, family, coworkers, and media awaited the return of the crew of STS-107 and the Space Shuttle Columbia at NASA’s Shuttle Landing Facility. Although sadly, the shuttle would never come, today we remember the seven crew members who perished, reaching for the stars in the name of peace.

Humans first orbited the Moon on this day in 1968, and while on their first pass around the backside of the Moon, they first saw with their own eyes Earthrise over the horizon.

In the early 60s, the Cold War was intensifying between the United States and the Soviet Union. Because of rising tensions between the two superpowers, the threat of a nuclear war was a genuine concern for both sides. So naturally, spying and reconnaissance became valuable tactics.

Launch of the Apollo 8 mission (December 21, 1968)

On the morning of December 21, 1968, a 36-story-tall Saturn V rocket towered over Cape Kennedy, now known as Cape Canaveral. Thousands of onlookers gathered to view the historic event on the nearby beaches. Sitting atop the lumbering Saturn V was the Apollo 8 spacecraft, ready to carry the first humans around the moon.