Music in space

Dongfanghong I (simplified Chinese: 东方红一号; traditional Chinese: 東方紅一號; pinyin: Dōngfānghóng Yīhào; lit. 'The East is Red 1') was the People's Republic of China's first space satellite, launched successfully on 24 April 1970 as part of the PRC's Dongfanghong space satellite program. The satellite carried a radio transmitter which broadcast the song of the same name, Dōngfānghóng or "The East Is Red"; the broadcast lasted for 20 days while in orbit.

A few bars of "The Fountain in the Park" were sung on the Moon by NASA Astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, the final Apollo moon mission. Schmitt started by singing "I was strolling on the Moon one day..." after which Cernan joined in. Cernan kept with the original "merry month of May", however, while Schmitt sang "December", which was the actual date at the time. Cernan interjected, "No, May!", and Schmitt corrected himself. Schmitt resumed, singing "When much to my surprise, a pair of bonny eyes..." until he could no longer remember the lyrics and began vocalizing the notes instead.^[11] Moments later, Capsule Communicator Robert A. Parker cut in from Houston, punningly saying that "sorry, guys, but today may be December."^{[citation needed]}

 

The Voyager program probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched by NASA with a message aboard — a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of the world of humans on Earth.^[12]

This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.

— President Jimmy Carter

The records feature spoken greetings in fifty-nine languages,^[13][14] "sounds of Earth",^[15] and a 90-minute selection of music from many cultures, including Eastern and Western classics.^[16]

On 22 July 1987, Soyuz TM-3 was the third crewed spaceflight to visit the Soviet space station Mir. The cosmonauts took a CD-player with them, together with two small speakers and the Space Opera album by French composer Didier Marouani. According to Marouani, the CD, the player and speakers were launched into outer space in October 1987. Cosmonaut Aleksandr Pavlovich Aleksandrov confirmed that he listened to the album during his mission on Mir. ^[17]

On 21 November 1988, a cassette tape of Pink Floyd's live Delicate Sound of Thunder album (minus the cassette box, for weight reasons) was taken into space by the crew of the Soviet Soyuz TM-7 mission.^[18] The launch, at Baikonur Cosmodrome, was attended by the band's David Gilmour and Nick Mason, who made an audio recording of the event for potential use in a future project.^[18] This was claimed by Gilmour to have been the first rock music recording in space.^[18] In actuality, various cassettes carried by Al Worden on Apollo 15 nearly two decades earlier contained recordings from multiple various rock artists.^[19] The tape was left on the Mir space station when the mission crew returned to Earth.^[18]

In 2003 the British space organization's Beagle 2 probe was scheduled to play a song from the British rock band Blur, upon touchdown on the planet Mars.^[20] It was not known what happened to Beagle 2 for 11 years after landing, and it was considered lost. When it was found intact in 2015, however, the possibility was raised that Beagle 2 had successfully played the song on Christmas Day in 2003 upon landing, but failed to transmit back to Earth.^[21] The song, also called "Beagle 2", was composed for the project and had been issued as the B-side of the band's 1999 "No Distance Left to Run" single prior to the launch.

American recording artist will.i.am wrote, produced, and recorded the song "Reach for the Stars"^[22] (and their instrumental-driven version subtitled "Mars Edition" and "NASA Edition"^[23]) in commemoration of the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. The song was first released on August 28, 2012, and it became the first song that was successfully broadcast from another planet.^[24]

During his time on the International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield recorded twelve songs. One was a recording of David Bowie's Space Oddity, ten were originals by him, and "Beyond the Terra" was written by him and his son.^[25] He released the album as Space Sessions: Songs from a Tin Can in 2015.

 

Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster was launched into Earth orbit, then Solar orbit, in February 2018 as part of the Falcon Heavy Test Flight. The sound system on board the car was looping David Bowie's songs "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?".^{[26][failed verification]}

As a part of NASA's ElaNa 19 initiative, 18 year-old millionaire Erik Finman collaborated with a team of high school students from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and designed a CubeSat named Project DaVinci.^[27][28] The CubeSat serves as a time capsule orbiting around the Earth, and contains a collection of videos, music and movies, including Taylor Swift's 2014 album, 1989. The album was uploaded to the satellite, while its Swift-autographed CD was engraved to the satellite's side.^[29][30] DaVinci was launched into space on December 16, 2018, from Mahia, New Zealand.^[31]

On 7 May 2021, British rock band Coldplay premiered their new single "Higher Power" from the International Space Station by having French European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet preview the song via a branded "extraterrestrial transmission".^[32] The album from which the song originates, Music of the Spheres, is a space-themed concept album.^[33]

To test the experimental system of the “space Internet”, Danuri (Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter) successfully forwarded a number of photos taken, as well as several video files, including, BTS’ “Dynamite” from outer space to Earth at Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) on 7 November 2022.^[34][35]

Hakuto-R houses a payload, that is, a music disc featuring the song ‘SORATO’ by the Japanese rock band Sakanaction. The song was initially released in 2018 as a part of the Team Hakuto campaign for the Google Lunar XPRIZE.^[36]

On Friday, September 13, 2024, during the Polaris Dawn mission, SpaceX Engineer Sarah Gillis performed a violin solo from Rey's Theme from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Gillis was joined by young musicians around the world. The performance was used to raise money for El Sistema. ^[37]

• Space-themed music
• Space music
• Music2titan