The following is an outline of 1987 in spaceflight .
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
Launches
Date and time (UTC )
Rocket
Flight number
Launch site
LSP
Payload CubeSat )
Operator
Orbit
Function
Decay (UTC)
Outcome
Remarks
5 February Soyuz-U2
Baikonur Site 1/5
Soyuz TM-2
Low Earth (Mir )
Mir EO-2
30 July 01:04:12 Successful
Crewed flight launching two cosmonauts and landing three, first crewed flight of Soyuz-TM
12 February Titan 34B /Agena-D
Vandenberg SLC-4W
U.S. Air Force
SDS-1 F-6 [ 1] U.S. Air Force
Molniya
Communications In orbit
Successful
Final flight of the Titan IIIB rocket. Final use of the RM-81 Agena upper stage in any rocket.
26 February Delta 3914
Cape Canaveral LC-17A
GOES 7
NOAA
Geostationary
Weather In orbit
Operational
20 March Delta-3920
Cape Canaveral LC-17
Palapa B2-P
PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara
?
Communications In orbit
Successful
31 March Proton-K
Site 200/39
Kvant-1
1991–2001: Roskosmos
Low Earth (Mir)
Mir module
23 March 2001 05:59:36 Successful
Kvant FSB
Low Earth (Kvant-1)
Space tug
25 August 1988 Successful
15 May Energia
Site 250
Polyus
Intended: Low Earth
Weapons tests
15 May Launch failure
Maiden flight of Energia, computer error resulted in spacecraft attempting to perform circularisation burn in a retrograde orientation, failed to orbit
8 June
RH-300 Mk II
Sriharikota
ISRO
ISRO
Suborbital
Engineering test
8 June Successful
First flight of the RH-300 Mk II, reached an altitude of 130 km (80 miles)
22 July
Soyuz TM-3
Low Earth (Mir)
Mir EP-1
29 December 09:16:15 Successful
Crewed flight with three cosmonauts, first Syrian in space, carried replacement for ill EO-2 crewmember
24 August Skylark 7
Woomera Test Range LA2 D
MORABA
DFVLR
Suborbital
X-ray astronomy 24 August Successful
Apogee: ~270 km
8 October
Sonda IV
Barreira do Inferno Launch Center
IAE
IAE
Suborbital
Engineering test
8 October Successful
"Operation Petrópolis". R&D launch for the VLS program. 510 kg payload. 570 km apogee.[ 2]
21 November Ariane 2
Kourou ELA-2
Arianespace
TV-SAT 1
Deutsche Bundespost
Current: Graveyard Geosynchronous
Communications In orbit
Spacecraft failure
Immediately after launch, one of its solar panels failed to deploy, and as a result of this the main uplink antenna, which was located behind the solar panel, could not deploy either. Briefly used to verify the systems of the Spacebus 300 satellite bus before being retired to a graveyard orbit.
21 December
Soyuz TM-4
Low Earth (Mir)
Mir EO-3
17 June 1988 10:12:32 Successful
Crewed flight with three cosmonauts
Deep-space rendezvous
There were no deep-space rendezvous in 1987.
References
Bergin, Chris. "NASASpaceFlight.com" . Clark, Stephen. "Spaceflight Now" . Kelso, T.S. "Satellite Catalog (SATCAT)" . CelesTrak. [dead link ] Krebs, Gunter. "Chronology of Space Launches" . Kyle, Ed. "Space Launch Report" . Archived from the original on 5 October 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2022 . McDowell, Jonathan. "GCAT Orbital Launch Log" . Pietrobon, Steven. "Steven Pietrobon's Space Archive" . Wade, Mark. "Encyclopedia Astronautica" . Webb, Brian. "Southwest Space Archive" . Zak, Anatoly. "Russian Space Web" . "ISS Calendar" . Spaceflight 101 ."NSSDCA Master Catalog" . NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive . NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ."Space Calendar" . NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory .[dead link ] "Space Information Center" . JAXA .[dead link ] "Хроника освоения космоса" [Chronicle of space exploration]. CosmoWorld (in Russian).
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
January February March April May June July August September October November December Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ).Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
