Portal:Spaceflight/On This Day/4 January

1959 - Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Pacific Test Range are declared operational.
1959 - Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to fly past the moon. It was intended to land, but did not due to a guidance error.
1963 - A Molniya fails to launch a Luna probe to the moon, after an upper stage malfunction.
1970 - The Apollo 20 mission is cancelled.
2004 - The Spirit rover lands on Mars.