2006 in spaceflight

## Launches

This is a list of spacecraft which were launched into space during the year 2006.
|width=85px|Date and time of launch (GMT)|Rocket|Launch site|Spacecraft|Owner of spacecraft|Mission|Notes|||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||19 January 19:00||Atlas V||Cape Canaveral Air Force Station||New Horizons||NASA||Interplanetry||Flyby of Pluto in 2015|
||24 January 01:33||H-IIA||Tanegashima||Daichi||JAXA||Earth observation|||
||15 February 23:35||Zenit-3||Pacific Ocean||EchoStar 10||EchoStar||Communication|||
||16 February 08:01||Minuteman||Vandenberg Air Force Base||Dummy bomb||US Air Force||ICBM test|||
||18 February 06:27||H-IIA||Tanegashima||MTSAT-2||Japanese government||Air Traffic Control and weather|||
|rowspan = "2"|21 February 21:28|rowspan = "2"|M-V|rowspan = "2"|Uchinoura||Akari||JAXA||Astronomy|||
||CUTE-1.7+APD||||||Nanosat (Very small satellite)|||||||
||28 February 20:10||Proton||Baikonur||ARABSAT 4A||Arab Satellite Communications Organisation||Communications||Did not reach correct orbit after problems with rocket|
|rowspan = "2"|11 March 22:33|rowspan = "2"|Ariane 5|rowspan = "2"|Kourou||SPAINSAT||Spanish government||Communications|||
||Hot Bird 7A||Eutelsat||Communications|||||||||
|rowspan = "3"|22 March 14:03|rowspan = "3"|Pegasus|rowspan = "3"|Aircraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base||Space Technology 5 (Forward)||NASA||Study Earth|||
||Space Technology 5 (Middle)||NASA||Study Earth|||||||||
||Space Technology 5 (Aft)||NASA||Study Earth|||||||||
||24 March 22:30||Falcon 1||Omelek Island||FalconSat 2||US Air Force||Study plasma||First flight of Falcon 1 rocket Engine failed 23 seconds after launch and the rocket crashed into the Pacific Ocean|
||30 March 02:30||Soyuz||Baikonur||Soyuz TMA-8||Russian Space Agency||Manned mission to International Space Station||Crew of 3 ISS Expedition 13|
||7 April 13:00||Minuteman||Vandenberg Air Force Base||Dummy bomb||US Air Force||ICBM test|||
||12 April 23:30||Zenit-3||Pacific Ocean||JCSAT-9||JCSAT||Communication|||
|rowspan = "6"|14 April 01:40|rowspan = "6"|Minotaur|rowspan = "6"|Vandenberg Air Force Base||COSMIC-1||COSMIC||Study Atmosphere of Earth|||
||COSMIC-2||COSMIC||Study Atmosphere of Earth|||||||||
||COSMIC-3||COSMIC||Study Atmosphere of Earth|||||||||
||COSMIC-4||COSMIC||Study Atmosphere of Earth|||||||||
||COSMIC-5||COSMIC||Study Atmosphere of Earth|||||||||
||COSMIC-6||COSMIC||Study Atmosphere of Earth|||||||||
||20 April 20:27||Atlas V||Cape Canaveral Air Force Station||Astra 1KR||SES Astra||Communication|||
||24 April 16:03||Soyuz||Baikonur||Progress||Russian Space Agency||Deliver supplies to International Space Station|||
||25 April 16:47||Start-1||Svobodniy||EROS-B||ImageSat||Earth imaging|||
||26 April 22:48||Long March 4||Taiyuan||Yaogan 1||||Spy satellite|||
|rowspan = "2"|28 April 10:02|rowspan = "2"|Delta II|rowspan = "2"|Vandenberg Air Force Base||CALIPSO||NASA||Study aerosols|||
||CloudSat||NASA||Study clouds|||||||||
||3 May 17:38||Soyuz||Baikonur||Kosmos-2420||Russian government||Spy satellite|||
||24 May 22:11||Delta IV||Cape Canaveral Air Force Station||GOES-13||NASA/NOAA||Weather|||
||26 May 18:50||Shtil'||Barents Sea||Kompass 2||Izmiran||Earthquake detection|||
|rowspan = "2"|27 May 21:09|rowspan = "2"|Ariane 5|rowspan = "2"|Kourou||SATMEX 6||Satellites Mexicanas||Communication|||
||THAICOM 5||Shin Satellite||Communication|||||||||
||14 June 14:08||Minuteman||Vandenberg Air Force Base||Dummy bomb||US Air Force||ICBM test|||
||15 June 08:00||Soyuz||Baikonur||Resurs||Russian Space Agency||Earth observation|||
||18 June 07:50||Zenit-3||Pacific Ocean||Galaxy 16||PanAmSat||Communication|||
||18 June 22:44||Proton||Baikonur||KazSat||Government of Kazakhstan||Communication|||
|rowspan = "3"|21 June 22:15|rowspan = "3"|Delta II|rowspan = "3"|Cape Canaveral||MITEX-A||US Air Force||Technology test|||
||MITEX-B||US Air Force||Technology test|||||||||
||MITEX-Carrier||US Air Force||Technology test|||||||||
||24 June 15:08||Soyuz||Baikonur||Progress||Russian Space Agency||Deliver supplies to International Space Station|||
||25 June 04:00||Tsyklon-2||Baikonur||Kosmos-2421||Russian Navy||Spy satellite||Solar panels did not work|
||27 June 03:30||Delta IV||Vandenberg Air Force Base||NRO L-22||NRO||Spy satellite|||
|rowspan = "2"|4 July 18:38|rowspan = "2"|Space Shuttle _Discovery_|rowspan = "2"|Kennedy Space Center||STS-121||NASA||Manned mission to International Space Station||Crew of 7|
||Leonardo MPLM||NASA||Deliver supplies to International Space Station|||||||||
||10 July 12:38||GSLV||Satish Dhawan Space Centre||INSAT 4C||ISRO||Communications||Rocket destroyed after engine failure|
||12 July 15:53||Dnepr||Dombarovskiy||Genesis-1||Bigelow Aerospace||Space Station||Prototype (no crew)|
||20 July 10:14||Minuteman||Vandenberg Air Force Base||Dummy bomb||US Air Force||ICBM test|||
|rowspan = "18"|26 July 19:43|rowspan = "18"|Dnepr|rowspan = "18"|Baikonur||BelKA||National Academy of Sciences of Republic of Belarus||Earth imaging|Rowspan = "18"|Crashed back to Earth after engine failure|
||Unisat-4||Universita di Roma||Technology test|||||||||
||Baumanets||Moskovskiy Gosudarstvenniy Tekhnicheskiy Universitet||Earth imaging and radio|||||||||
||PICPOT||Politecnico di Torino||Earth imaging|||||||||
||SACRED||University of Arizona||CubeSat|||||||||
||ION||University of Illinois||Double CubeSat|||||||||
||Rincon 1||University of Arizona||CubeSat|||||||||
||ICECube-1||Cornell||CubeSat|||||||||
||KUTESat Pathfinder||University of Kansas||CubeSat|||||||||
||SEEDS||Nihon University||CubeSat|||||||||
||nCube||Government of Norway||CubeSat|||||||||
||HAUSAT-1||Government of South Korea||CubeSat|||||||||
||MEROPE||University of Montana||CubeSat|||||||||
||CP-2||CalPoly||CubeSat|||||||||
||AeroCube-1||AerospaceCorp||CubeSat|||||||||
||CP-1||CalPoly||CubeSat|||||||||
||Voyager||University of Hawaii||CubeSat|||||||||
||ICECube2||Cornell||CubeSat|||||||||
||28 July 07:05||Rokot||Baikonur||KOMPSAT 2||||Earth imaging|||
||4 August 21:48||Proton||Baikonur||Hot Bird 8||Eutelsat||Communication|||
|rowspan = "2"|11 August 22:15|rowspan = "2"|Ariane 5|rowspan = "2"|Kourou||JCSat-10||||Communication|||
||Syracuse 3B||||Communication|||||||||
||22 August 03:27||Zenit-3||Pacific Ocean||Koreasat 5||KT Corporation||Communication|||
||9 September 07:00||Long March 2||Jiuquan||Shi Jian 8||CASC||Grow seeds in space|||
|rowspan = "2"|9 September 15:15|rowspan = "2"|Space Shuttle _Atlantis_|rowspan = "2"|Kennedy Space Center||STS-115||NASA||Manned flight to International Space Station||Crew of 6|
||ISS P3/4 Truss||NASA||Part of the International Space Station|||||||||
||11 September 04:35||H-IIA||Tanegashima||Information Gathering Satellite||Japanese government||Spy satellite|||
||12 September 16:02||Long March 3||Taiyuan||Zhongxing 22A|||||||
||14 September 13:41||Soyuz||Baikonur||Kosmos-2423||||Spy satellite|||
||18 September 04:09||Soyuz||Baikonur||Soyuz TMA-9||Russian Space Agency||Manned mission to International Space Station||Crew of 3 ISS Expedition 14|
|rowspan = "3"|22 September 21:36|rowspan = "3"|M-V|rowspan = "3"|Uchinoura||Hinode||JAXA||Observe the Sun|Rowspan = "3"|Last flight of the M-V rocket SSSat did not work|
||HIT-SAT||Hokkaido Institute of Technology||Technology test|||||||||
||SSSat||JAXA||Solar sail|||||||||
||25 September 18:50||Delta II||Cape Canaveral Air Force Station||GPS 2R-M2||US Air Force||Navigation|||
||25 September 20:14||SpaceLoft||Spaceport America||Various||UP Aerospace||Scientific experiments||First flight of SpaceLoft First flight from Spaceport America Lost control and crashed|
|rowspan = "3"|13 October 20:56|rowspan = "3"|Ariane 5|rowspan = "3"|Kourou||DirecTV-9S||||Communication|||
||Optus D1||||Communication|||||||||
||LDREX-2||||Technology test|||||||||
||19 October 16:28||Soyuz||Baikonur||MetOp-A||Eumetsat||Weather satellite|||
||23 October 13:41||Soyuz||Baikonur||Progress||Russian Space Agency||Deliver supplies to International Space Station|||
|rowspan = "2"|24 October 23:34|rowspan = "2"|Long March 4|rowspan = "2"|Taiyuan||Shi Jian 6-2A||||Study environment|||
||Shi Jian 6-2B||||Study environment|||||||||
|rowspan = "2"|26 October|rowspan = "2"|Delta II|rowspan = "2"|Cape Canaveral Air Force Station||STEREO-A||NASA||Study Sun and Earth|||
||STEREO-B||NASA||Study Sun and Earth|||||||||
||28 October 16:20||Long March 3||Xichang||Sinosat-2||Sino Satellite Communications Company||Communication||Solar panels did not work|
||30 October 23:48||Zenit-3||Pacific Ocean||XM-4 "Blues"||XM Satellite Radio||Communication|||
||4 November 13:53||Delta IV||Vandenberg Air Force Base||DMSP F17||US Air Force||Weather|||
||8 November 20:01||Proton||Baikonur||Badr 4||Arabsat||Communication|||
||17 November 19:12||Delta II||Cape Canaveral Air Force Station||GPS 2R-M3||US Air Force||Navigation|||
||8 December 00:53||Long March 3||Taiyuan||Feng Yun 2D||CSMA||Weather|||
|rowspan = "2"|8 December 22:07|rowspan = "2"|Ariane 5|rowspan = "2"|Kourou||Americom 18||SES Americom||Communication|||
||WildBlue 1||WildBlue||Communication|||||||||
|rowspan = "7"|10 December 01:47|rowspan = "7"|Space Shuttle _Discovery_|rowspan = "7"|Kennedy Space Center||STS-116||NASA||Manned flight to International Space Station||Crew of 7|
||ISS P5 Truss||NASA||Part of the International Space Station|||||||||
||Spacehab module||NASA/Spacehab||Deliver supplies to International Space Station|||||||||
||ANDE||US Navy||Technology test|||||||||
||RAFT-1||US Navy||Technology test|||||||||
||MARScom||US Navy||Technology test|||||||||
||MEPSI-2||DARPA||Technology test|||||||||
||11 December 23:28||Proton||Baikonur||MEASAT 3||||Communication|||
||14 December 21:00||Delta II||Vandenberg Air Force Base||NRO L-21||NRO||Spy satellite|||
|rowspan = "2"|16 December 12:00|rowspan = "2"|Minotaur|rowspan = "2"|Wallops Island||TacSat 2||US Navy||Technology test|||
||GeneSat||NASA||Scientific experiments|||||||||
||19 December 14:00||Kosmos 3M||Plesetsk||SAR-Lupe 1|||||||
||18 December 06:32||H-IIA||Tanegashima||ETS-8||JAXA||Technology test|||
||22 December 08:34||Soyuz||Plesetsk||TBC||VKS||Communication|||
|rowspan = "3"|25 December 20:18|rowspan = "3"|Proton|rowspan = "3"|Baikonur||Glonass||KNITs||Navigation|||
||Glonass||KNITs||Navigation|||||||||
||Glonass||KNITs||Navigation|||||||||
||27 December 14:23||Soyuz||Baikonur||CoRoT||CNES||Astronomy|||

## References

- Encyclopedia Astronautica
- Gunter's Space Page - Chronology of Space Launches
- JAXA
- Jonathan's Space Report (SatCat.txt and Launchlog.txt)
- NASA
- Orbital Report News Agency's Launch Logs
- SpaceFlightNow
- Steven Pietrobon's Space Archive