2024 was s huge year for ourunderstanding of the cosmosand thespaceflight industrywrit large.
For your reading pleasure were highlighting over a dozen projects poised to hit major landmarks this year.
Without further ado, heres your year ahead in space.
Top left: Sunset at the Rubin Observatory on Chile’s Cerro Pachón (photo: Olivier Bonin/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory); Right: ESA’s Space Rider will remain in orbit for six months to carry out experiments in the microgravity environment (credit: ESA); bottom left: two galaxies as seen by the Webb Space Telescope (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI).
Lucys flyby
TheLucy spacecraftnamed for the remarkable fossil of the same namelaunched into space in October 2021.
Investigating the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a population of space rocks that have never been explored up close.
Lucy has since travelledtens of millions of milesthrough space, visiting the unique Dinkinesh binary asteroid in January 2023.
Illustration: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
This year, Lucy will make a flybya near passof the Trojan asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20.
2025 will be even more climactic, as the Juno mission will end this year.
Well be sure to publish a eulogy for the hardworking spacecraft when the time comes.
Illustration:NASA
Constantly monitoring Earths surface from space will give NASA and ISRO a sweeping view of our planets systems.
Spaceplanes are all the rage today.
This allows for regular reusability and a fast turnaround between missions.
An illustration of the NISAR satellite in orbit. Illustration: NASA
At least we hope.
Firefly on the Moon
Theres a special delivery to the Moon.
Texas-startup Firefly is meeting its end of a $93.3 million contract with NASA for its first lunar lander.
An artist’s concept of ESA’s Space Rider in orbit. Illustration: ESA
The two landers are targeting different lunar mares.
Januarys mission will mark ispaces second attempt at landing on the lunar surface.
This year, the Houston-based company is hoping to double on its success with the Athena lander.
Artist’s impression of Dream Chaser. Image: Sierra Space
Intuitive Machines will use itsNOVA-C landing platform under NASAs CLPS initiative.
The test entails two Starships rendezvousing in orbit, with one transferring fuel to the other.
The two rockets will launch around four weeks apart before meeting and docking in space for the first-of-its-kind demonstration.
An illustration of the Blue Ghost mission on the surface of the Moon. Credit: Firefly Aerospace
Each night, the camera will collect 15 terabytes of data on the southern sky.
you could see updates on the observatorys developmenthere.
First light is currently slated for July 4, 2025.
An artist’s impression of the IMAP mission in space. Illustration: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton University/Steve Gribben
This time around, Axiom is launching astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary to the space station.
Some of the light SPHEREx collects will be from over 10 billion light-years away.
Each launch, landing, observationand even failurebrings us close to answering some of the biggest questions in science.
An illustration of a Starship tanker transferring propellant to Starship HLS. Credit: SpaceX
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Photo: Olivier Bonin/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
An artist’s concept of SPHEREx in Earth orbit, with the near-infrared universe (and Milky Way disk) in background. Illustration: Caltech
