1987 in spaceflight

The following is an outline of 1987 in spaceflight.

1987 in spaceflight

The Atlas H launches on its final flight
Orbital launches
First	5 January
Last	29 December
Total	115
Catalogued	110
National firsts
Space traveller	Syria
Rockets
Maiden flights	ASLV Energia
Retirements	Atlas H N-II Titan III(34)B
Crewed flights
Orbital	3
Total travellers	8

Launches

← Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec →

Date and time (UTC)	Rocket		Flight number	Launch site		LSP
		Payload (⚀ = CubeSat)	Operator	Orbit	Function	Decay (UTC)	Outcome
		Remarks
5 February 21:38:16	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 06:40	Titan 34B/Agena-D			Vandenberg SLC-4W		U.S. Air Force
		SDS-1 F-6	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 23:05	Delta 3914			Cape Canaveral LC-17A
		GOES 7	NOAA	Geostationary	Weather	In orbit	Operational
20 March 23:05	Delta-3920			Cape Canaveral LC-17
		Palapa B2-P	PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara	?	Communications	In orbit	Successful
31 March 00:16:16	Proton-K			Baikonur 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 17:30:01	Energia			Baikonur Site 250
		Polyus		Intended: Low Earth	Weapons tests Technology	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 01:59:17	Soyuz-U2			Baikonur Site 1/5
		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 16:30	Skylark 7			Woomera Test Range LA2 D		MORABA
		Supernova (W-GR-147)	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.
21 November 02:19:00	Ariane 2			Kourou ELA-2		Arianespace
		TV-SAT 1	Deutsche Bundespost	Current: Graveyard Operational: 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 11:18:03	Soyuz-U2			Baikonur Site 1/5
		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.
• 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.
• "Space Information Center". JAXA.
• "Хроника освоения космоса" [Chronicle of space exploration]. CosmoWorld (in Russian).

Generic references:
Spaceflight portal