• Source: 2024 in spaceflight

So far, the year saw the successful first launch of Vulcan Centaur, Gravity-1, Ariane 6 (partially successful), and notably more developmental launches of SpaceX's Starship. Additionally, the final launch of a Delta family rocket occurred in April with a Delta IV Heavy. In May, China launched the Chang'e 6, the first sample return from the far side of the Moon. The Polaris Dawn mission conducted the first ever commercial spacewalk in September.
In terms of other national-level scientific space missions, NASA's Europa Clipper probe, and ESA's Hera probes launched in October 2024. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter ended operation in January due to damages to rotor blades after its 72nd flight. This year is also expected to see many lunar landing attempts. JAXA's SLIM and Intuitive Machines' IM-1 have successfully survived soft-landings on the Moon but were tipped over during final moments of descent.
Two crewed space stations, the International Space Station (ISS) and Tiangong, are in operation in 2024. In terms of crewed missions, the ISS will be visited by Expedition 70, 71, and 72, while Shenzhou 18 and 19 will visit Tiangong. The ISS also hosted the private crew of Axiom Mission 3.

This year saw Alper Gezeravcı become the first Turkish astronaut, as a crew member on the Axiom Mission 3. Belarus also had its first citizen reach space, when cosmonaut Maryna Vasileuskaya launched on Soyuz MS-25 (not counting Pyotr Klimuk, Vladimir Kovalyonok, and Oleg Novitsky who were Soviet or Russian citizens of Belarusian origin when they traveled to space). In addition, British citizen Nicolina Elrick became the first ethnic Singaporean to reach space when Blue Origin NS-26 soared past the Kármán line on 2024 August 29th.




Overview






= Astronomy and astrophysics

=
On New Year's Day at 3:40 UTC marking the first launch of the new year, ISRO launched their XPoSat for studying X-ray polarization. It will serve as a complement to the present IXPE probe of NASA. Later the ISRO's Aditya-L1 spacecraft launched 5 months previously was inserted into a halo orbit around the Earth-Sun L1 point on 6 January. It will study the solar atmosphere, solar magnetic storms, and their impact on the environment around Earth.
Einstein Probe, X-ray space telescope mission by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in partnership with ESA and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) dedicated to time-domain high-energy astrophysics, was launched on 9 January 2024.
In April 2024, NASA began, under the direction of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to create a standard for time on the Moon, it is called Coordinated Lunar Time and is expected to be completed by 2026.
The Space Variable Objects Monitor is a small X-ray telescope satellite for studying the explosions of massive stars by analysing the resulting gamma-ray bursts, developed by China National Space Administration (CNSA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the French Space Agency (CNES), launched on 22 June 2024 (07:00:00 UTC).
European Space Agency will launch their PROBA-3 dual satellites for solar coronagraphy.




= Exploration of the Solar System

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NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity flew its 72nd and last flight on 18 January. Because all four of its rotor blades were damaged, NASA announced the end of mission for Ingenuity on 25 January.
On 7 October, the Hera spacecraft was launched successfully. It will arrive at the asteroid Didymos in 2026 after Mars flyby, where it will study the effects of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test.
NASA launched the Europa Clipper on 14 October, which will study the Jovian moon Europa while in orbit around Jupiter.




= Lunar exploration

=



Peregrine

Peregrine lunar lander was successfully launched on 8 January, but after the launch a propellant leak was detected that precluded any attempt to perform a lunar landing. In the end, the Peregrine spacecraft never left the (highly elliptical) Earth orbit it was injected into by the carrier rocket, and the mission ended ten days later (after one orbit) on 18 January when the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere (under control of the mission team) and was destroyed.



SLIM

SLIM achieved the first-ever lunar soft landing for a Japanese spacecraft. It landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, making Japan the 5th country to soft land on the Moon. Although it landed successfully, it landed on its side with the solar panels oriented westwards facing opposite the Sun at the start of lunar day, thereby failing to generate enough power. The lander operated on an internal battery power, which was fully drained that day.
Irrespective of this solar array issue on lander, the two LEV 1 and 2 rovers, deployed during hovering just before final landing worked as expected, with LEV-1 communicating independently to the ground stations. LEV-1 conducted seven hops over 107 minutes on lunar surface. Images taken by LEV-2 show the wrong attitude landing with loss of an engine nozzle during descent and even possible sustained damage to lander's Earth bound antenna, that is not pointed towards Earth. Irrespective of wrong attitude and loss of communication with the lander, the mission was fully successful after confirmation of its primary goal landing within 100 m (330 ft) of its landing spot was already achieved.
On 29 January, the lander resumed operations after being shut down for a week. JAXA said it re-established contact with the lander and its solar cells were working again after a shift in lighting conditions allowed it to catch sunlight. After that, SLIM was put in sleep mode for impending harsh lunar night. While SLIM was expected to operate only for one lunar daylight period, or 14 Earth days, with its on-board electronics not designed to withstand the −120 °C (−184 °F) nighttime temperatures on the Moon, it managed to survive 3 lunar nights, waking up on 25 February, 27 March and 24 April respectively, sending back more data and images. This feat of surviving lunar night without a radioisotope heater unit was only previously achieved by some landers in the Surveyor program.



Nova-C

IM-1 Nova-C Odysseus launched on 15 February 2024 towards the Moon via Falcon 9 on a direct intercept trajectory and later landed in the south polar region of the Moon on 22 February 2024 and became the first successful private lander and the first to do so using cryogenic propellants. Though it landed successfully, one of the lander's legs broke upon landing and it tilted up on other side, 18° due to landing on a slope, but the lander survived and payloads were functioning as expected.
Just before landing, at approximately 30 m (98 ft) above the lunar surface, the Odysseus lander was planned to eject the EagleCam camera-equipped CubeSat, which would have been dropped onto the lunar surface near the lander, with an impact velocity of about 10 m/s (22 mph). However, due to complications arising from the software patch, it was decided that EagleCam would not be ejected upon landing. It was later ejected on 28 February returning all types of data, except post IM-1 landing images that were the main aim of its mission.
The lander also includes the Lunar Library that contains a version of the English Wikipedia, artworks, selections from the Internet Archive, portions of the Project Gutenberg, and more. It is projected to reside on the Moon in a readable state for billions of years.



China Lunar Exploration Program


On 13 March, China attempted to launch two spacecrafts, DRO-A and DRO-B, into distant retrograde orbit around the Moon, but the mission failed to reach the strived for orbit, remaining stranded in a highly eliptical low Earth orbit. Tracking data appears to show China attempted to salvage the spacecraft and they appear to have succeeded in reaching their desired orbit.
On 20 March, China launched its relay satellite, Queqiao-2, to lunar orbit, along with two mini satellites Tiandu 1 and 2. Queqiao-2 will relay communications for the Chang'e 6 (far side of the Moon), Chang'e 7 and Chang'e 8 (Lunar south pole region) spacecrafts. Tiandu 1 and 2 will test technologies for a future lunar navigation and positioning constellation. All the three probes entered lunar orbit successfully on 24 March 2024 (Both were attached to each other and separated in lunar orbit on 3 April 2024).
China sent Chang'e 6 on 3 May 2024, which conducted the first lunar sample return from Apollo Basin on the far side of the Moon. This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was achieved by Chang'e 5 from the lunar near side four years earlier. It carries several international payloads as well as an un-(pre)announced Chinese mini-rover called Jinchan to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface and imaged Chang'e 6 lander on lunar surface. The lander-ascender-rover combination was separated from the orbiter and returner before landing on 1 June 2024 at 22:23 UTC. It landed on the Moon's surface on 1 June 2024. The ascender was launched back to lunar orbit on 3 June 2024 at 23:38 UTC, carrying samples collected by the lander, and completed rendezvous and docking with the waiting orbiter in lunar orbit. The sample container was transferred to the returner, which landed in Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, completing China's lunar far side sample return mission.
Pakistan sent a lunar orbiter called ICUBE-Q along with Chang'e 6. The lander also placed a small national flag of China, made of basalt, a substance that occurs in vast quantities on the Moon's surface, to demonstrate the spirit of in situ resource utilization. After dropping off the return samples for Earth, the Chang'e 6 (CE-6) orbiter was successfully captured by the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point on 9 September 2024.



Future

DARPA provided funding towards a forward looking 10 year lunar architecture proposals. Aimed at creating the beginning stages of a lunar economy the DARPA lunar programs is participated in by many current industry leaders.




= Human spaceflight

=
On 4 February, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko broke the world record for the most time spent in space, when he surpassed the previous record of 878 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes and 48 seconds held by retired cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. After Kononenko returned on 23 September, the new records stands at 1110 days, 14 hours and 57 minutes.
On 5 June, Boeing's Starliner spacecraft conducted its crewed test flight. Sunita Williams became the first woman to fly on the maiden crewed flight of an orbital spacecraft (for a suborbital spacecraft, similar feat was accomplished by Wally Funk on Blue Origin NS-16 mission of New Shepard).
On 11 September, following the launch of Soyuz MS-26, a record breaking 19 people were simultaneously in orbit around Earth. In addition to the crew of MS-26, this included the crews of Polaris Dawn, Boe-CFT, SpaceX Crew-8, Soyuz MS-25 and Shenzhou 18.



Private human spaceflight and space tourism

SpaceX launched Axiom Mission 3 aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) on 18 January 2024. The successful mission ended with a splashdown on 9 February 2024.
On 26 January, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity was successfully launched from Spaceport America on Galactic 06 suborbital space tourism mission. Galactic 07 launched on 8 June, the final flight of Unity suborbital spaceplane.
Blue Origin's New Shepard also returned to suborbital space tourism launches with the successful NS-25 mission on 19 May. The next mission, NS-26, took place on 29 August.
Polaris Dawn, featuring the first commercial spacewalk, launched on September 10 09:23 UTC. On September 11, the spacecraft reached an altitude of 1400 km, which is farther from Earth than any person has been since Apollo 17.




= Rocket innovation

=
The maiden flight of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur took place on 8 January 2024. Vulcan is the first methane fueled rocket to reach orbit on its first attempt, and the first methane fueled rocket to reach orbit from the US.
China's Orienspace's Gravity-1 rocket completed its successful maiden flight on 11 January 2024, debuting on a new mobile sea platform in the Yellow Sea while breaking records as both the world's largest solid-fuel carrier rocket and China's most powerful commercial launch vehicle to date (as of early 2024).
On 5 March, for the first time due to their fast turnaround of 1 hour 51 minutes between launches, SpaceX launch operations for a mission (in this case, Starlink Group 6-41) coincided with that of a preceding launch (in this case, payload deployment of Transporter-10:(53 payloads SmallSat Rideshare).
On 13 March, the KAIROS rocket from Space One company attempted its maiden flight. The rocket was destroyed in an explosion five seconds after lift-off. No injuries were caused by the explosion.
On 11 April, another test flight of the Russian Angara A5 launched, with the Orion upper stage being used for the first time.
On 7 May, Long March 6C flew its successful maiden mission.
SpaceX's Starship launched its fourth integrated flight test (IFT-4) on June 6, 2024. The launch resulted in the successful controlled splashdown of both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship vehicle.
In June, Stoke Space tested its full flow staged combustion cycle (FFSC) engine with a successful hotfire, the test marks only the fourth FFSC engine to have made it far enough in development to reach hotfire.
The maiden launch of Ariane 6 occurred on 9 July, but it was a partial failure as though CubeSats were deployed correctly, but the second stage failed to relight due to an anomaly with an auxiliary power unit. The second stage could not be deorbited and payloads studying and testing re-entry could not be deployed.
On 13 October, Starship flew its fifth orbital flight test during which, for the first time, the first stage booster was recovered. This makes Super Heavy the second ever orbital class rocket booster to be recovered by the use of retropropulsive landing (first being the Falcon 9 booster).
The maiden flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn is planned for November.Initial rollout of the vehicle and testing was completed in February and in May Blue Origin planned to conduct additional testing in preparation for launch. On June 12 Blue Origin received the communications license necessary for the flight.
The maiden flight of Long March 8A, a variant of Long March 8 with a larger second stage, is scheduled for December 2024.




= Satellite technology

=
Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem or PACE, a NASA Earth-observing satellite, launched on 8 February 2024.
In March, China successfully launched the Queqiao-2 relay satellite mission. The satellite is designed to act as a communication relay between Chang’e missions (including the Chang'e 6) and Earth. The satellite was announced as operational in April.
In April, NASA launched a next-generation solar sail demonstration aboard a Rocket Lab Electron.
ESA EarthCARE launched on May 28. Joint mission with JAXA.
NASA's GOES-U launched on June 25, with the capability to detect coronal mass ejections.
JAXA's ALOS-4 launched on July 1. It carries PALSAR-3 (Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar-3).




Orbital launches






Launches from the Moon






Deep-space rendezvous






Extravehicular activities (EVAs)






Space debris events






Orbital launch statistics






= By country

=
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. For example, Electron rockets launched from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand are counted under the United States because Electron is an American rocket. Launches from the Moon are not included in the statistics.




= By rocket

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By family




By type




By configuration





= By spaceport

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= By orbit

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Suborbital launch statistics






= By country

=
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of suborbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. Flights intended to fly below 80 km (50 mi) are omitted.




Maiden orbital flights






Notes






References






External links

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Mars One
• SpaceX
• Vostok 2
• Delta IV
• Long March 7
• Mark Kelly
• Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii
• Electron (roket)
• Titik Biru Pucat
• Bakteri
• 2024 in spaceflight
• List of spaceflight launches in July–December 2024
• List of spaceflight launches in January–June 2024
• List of spaceflight launches in 2024
• Timeline of spaceflight
• Soyuz MS-26
• Polaris Dawn
• Shenzhou 19
• Galactic 06
• List of spaceflight-related accidents and incidents