1970 in spaceflight

Orbital launches
First	11 February
Last	12 December
Successes	124
Failures	10
Catalogued	114
National firsts
Satellite	Japan   China
Orbital launch	Japan   China
v t e

Japan and China each launched their first satellites in 1970, bringing the total number of nations with independent launch capability to five.

Apollo 13 was launched; after suffering an explosion in deep space it had to circumnavigate the moon and use the LM as a life boat. Apollo 13 was a successful disaster in which the crew survived. The Soviet space program continued its Luna program with Luna 17, which delivered the robotic Lunokhod 1 rover to the lunar surface, and Luna 16, which achieved the first uncrewed lunar sample return. The Soviets also continued the success of the Venera Venus probes with Venera 7, the first man-made spacecraft to successfully land on another planet and to transmit data back to Earth, though it only survived 23 minutes on the surface.

Orbital Launches

This is a list of spaceflights launched in 1970.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008)

Date and time ( UTC)	Rocket		Flight number	Launch site		LSP
		Payload (⚀ = CubeSat)	Operator	Orbit	Function	Decay (UTC)	Outcome
		Remarks
January January launches Date and time ( UTC) Rocket Flight number Launch site LSP Payload Operator Orbit Function Decay (UTC) Outcome Remarks 9 January Voskhod Site 31/6, Baikonur Kosmos 318 (Zenit-2M #7, Gektor #7) GRU Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance In orbit Successful 14 January Titan IIIB Agena-D Vandenberg SLC-4W OPS 6531 KH-8 4325 USAF Low Earth Reconnaissance In orbit Successful 15 January Delta M Cape Canaveral LC-17A Intelsat III F6 Intelsat Geosynchronous Communications In orbit Successful 15 January Kosmos 2 Plesetsk Site 133/1 Kosmos 319 (DS-P1-Yu #29) Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance In orbit Successful 16 January Kosmos 2 Kapustin Yar Kosmos 320 (DS-MO #2, Opticheski #2) Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance In orbit Successful 20 January Kosmos 2 Plesetsk Site 133/1 Kosmos 321 (DS-U2-MG #1) Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance In orbit Successful 21 January Voskhod Site 41/1, Plesetsk Kosmos 322 (Zenit-4 #68) GRU Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance In orbit Successful 23 January Delta N6 Vandenberg SLC-2W TIROS M (ITOS 1) NOAA Low Earth Meteorology In orbit Successful Australis University of Melbourne Low Earth Communications In orbit Successful 30 January Kosmos 2 Plesetsk Site 133/1 DS-P1-I #7 Low Earth Orbit Reconnaissance In orbit Failure February
4 February	Thorad-SLV2G Agena-D			Vandenberg SLC-2E
		SERT 2	NASA Lewis research center	Low Earth	Technology Demonstration	In orbit	Successful
6 February	Proton K / D			Pad 81/23, Baikonur		MOM
		Ye-8-5 No.405	MOM	Selenocentric	Lunar lander	In orbit	Failure
10 February	Voskhod			Site 41/1, Plesetsk
		Kosmos 323 (Zenit-4 #69)	GRU	Low Earth Orbit	Reconnaissance	In orbit	Successful
11 February	Lambda-4S			Kagoshima		Japan
		Ohsumi	Tokyo University	Low Earth	Technology	2 August 2003	Successful
		First satellite launched by Japan
11 February	Thor LV-2F Burner 2			Vandenberg SLC-10W
		OPS 0054 DMSP-5A F1		SSO	Meteorology	In orbit	Successful
19 February	Molniya-M/ ML			Site 43/4, Plesetsk
		Molniya-1 13		Molniya	Communications	In orbit	Successful
27 February	Kosmos 2			Plesetsk Site 133/1
		Kosmos 324 (DS-P1-Yu #30)		Low Earth Orbit	Calibration	In orbit	Successful
March
3 March 21:15	Black Arrow			Woomera		RAE
			RAE	Low Earth	Test LV	In orbit	Successful
April
11 April 19:13	Saturn V (C-5)			Kennedy LC-39A		NASA
		Apollo 13 CSM Odyssey	NASA	Intended: Lunar orbit Actual: Lunar free return	Crewed lunar orbit.	15 April 1970	Failure
		Apollo 13 LM Aquarius	NASA	Intended: Lunar landing Actual: Lunar free return	Crewed lunar landing	15 April 1970	Failure
		Explosion in Service Module crippled spacecraft, resulting in mission abort. Mission aborted due to CSM malfunction. LM used to help bring crew back to Earth.
24 April 13:35	Long March 1			Jiuquan LA-2A		PRC
		Dong Fang Hong I	PRC	Low Earth	Test satellite	In orbit	Successful
		First satellite launched by China
June
1 June 19:00	Soyuz (R-7/A-2)			Baikonur Site 1		RVSN
		Soyuz 9	RVSN	Low Earth	Crewed Orbital Spaceflight	19 June 1970 11:58	Successful
		Longest Crewed flight involving only one spacecraft. (As of 09/06/06)
1 June 19:00	Black Arrow			Woomera		RAE
		Orba	RAE	Low Earth	Micrometeoroid detection satellite	In orbit	Failure
		First British attempt to launch a satellite. Failed to reach orbit after premature 2nd stage cutout.
September
12 September 13:25	Proton-K/D			Baikonur 81/23
		Luna 16		Selenocentric	Lunar lander	24 September	Successful
		First uncrewed lunar sample return, first Soviet lunar sample return
October
20 October 19:55	Proton-K/D			Baikonur 81/23
		Zond 8		Highly elliptical	Spacecraft test	In orbit	Successful
		Final circumlunar flight of the Zond program.
December
12 December 10:54	Scout B			San Marco mobile range, Kenya		CNR
		Uhuru	NASA	Low Earth	X-ray astronomy	5 April 1979	Successful
		First satellite dedicated to X-ray astronomy.

Suborbital Launches

This is a list of spaceflights launched in 1970.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008)

Launches from the Moon

Date and time ( UTC)	Rocket		Flight number	Launch site		LSP
		Payload (⚀ = CubeSat)	Operator	Orbit	Function	Decay (UTC)	Outcome
		Remarks
21 September 7:43	Luna 16 Ascent stage			Mare Fecunditatis ( Luna)
		Luna 16 Return capsule		Highly elliptical	Sample return	24 September 1970	Successful
		First uncrewed lunar sample return mission

Deep Space Rendezvous

References

Generic references:

• view
• talk

  Spaceflight portal

Footnotes

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)