Space exploration in 2024: 5 things to know
January 1, 2024
Space exploration hit exciting new heights over the last 12 months.
A new record was set for the number of people simultaneously in space — 20. India's Chandrayaan-3 landed spacecraft on the moon's south pole for the first time. And there were also new developments in space tourism flights and the launch of the space telescope, Euclid.
2024 is set to be just as exciting, but what's ahead?
Artemis 2 will send astronauts on a lunar flyby
NASA plans to launch Artemis 2 in November 2024, sending four astronauts around the moon on a 10-day lunar flyby. The mission will be the final test before Artemis 3 aims to send astronauts to the moon in 2025, the first attempt to get boots on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
"Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers — the Artemis Generation," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in April 2023 during an event near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Artemis 2 is one element of the multi-part Artemis moon exploration program led by NASA and involving six other major space agencies, including the European Space Agency (ESA).
More robots will land on the moon
NASA will send several landers to the moon in 2024 as part of the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiatives. Shuttles will send robotic equipment to the moon's south pole to collect important scientific data.
This includes VIPER, a soil sample prospector; PRIME-1, which will perform chemical analysis of ice samples; and Blue Ghost Mission 1, which will investigate heat flow in the lunar interior.
In May, China also plans to send Chang'e 6, a robotic lunar exploration mission, to the surface of the moon. The rover will collect the first lunar samples from the far side of the moon. Pakistan, France, Italy and Sweden will piggyback on the mission with their instruments, including Pakistan's lunar orbiter called ICECUBE-Q.
Visiting other moons in the solar system
Japan plans to launch Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) in 2024 to Phobos, the largest moon orbiting Mars. The mission plans to land a robot and bring back the first samples from the moon. The sample will contain around 20 grams of "regolith," or loose rock and dust on the moon's surface, which could be invaluable for scientists.
NASA also plans to launch the Europa Clipper in October. The mission will orbit Jupiter and perform a series of flybys of Europa, one of the more than 90 moons orbiting the gas giant.
The Europa Clipper will make 44 close flybys of the moon and hopes to identify possible landing sites for future landings. The mission will also gather data about the moon's ice shell and possible oceans, key chemical compounds required for life and geological characteristics of the moon's surface.
Asteroid investigations
ESA's Hera will launch toward two asteroids called Didymos and Dimorphos in October 2024. The two asteroids are each less than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter.
The Hera mission follows NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which hit Dimorphos and changed its orbit in 2022.
Hera will perform a follow-up assessment of the asteroid for planetary defense purposes. It will gather data about the mass and kinetics of Dimorphos to understand how DART changed the asteroid's orbit. It is scheduled to arrive in the Didymos system in December 2026.
NASA's Lucy will also head to asteroid systems in 2025 — eight asteroids orbiting Jupiter known as Trojan asteroids. Lucy hopes to gather data about the formation of our solar system.
Low-orbit commercial space flights will gather momentum
This year will see the launch of space planes, vehicles capable of flying in low orbit and landing back on Earth on conventional runways.
Sierra Space will launch Dream Chaser, a reusable space plane that launches on the back of a rocket. It's designed to carry a crew of three to seven and can resupply the International Space Station.
To help propel space planes into orbit, 2024 will see the maiden flight of a new type of launch vehicle — a rocket to you or me — called New Glenn. New Glenn is designed to be a reusable launch vehicle that can send commercial space planes into space, including space tourism flights.
Edited by: Davis VanOpdorp