2024 in spaceflight
Spaceflight-related events during the year 2024 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The year 2024 is expected to exceed 2023's 223 orbital launches. So far, the year saw the successful first launch of Vulcan Centaur, Gravity-1, and notably the third developmental launch of SpaceX's Starship – IFT-3, with IFT-4, IFT-5, and IFT-6 planned for this year. 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. By 13 May, there were 92 total launch attempts, equaling the total number of attempts for the whole year in 2014, just 10 years prior. Following the trend of the 2020s, it is expected that many more privately-developed launch vehicles will feature a maiden launch in 2024.
IM-1 Odysseus | |
Orbital launches | |
---|---|
First | 1 January |
Last | 30 May |
Total | 108 |
Successes | 104 |
Failures | 2 |
Partial failures | 2 |
Catalogued | 90 |
National firsts | |
Space traveller | |
Rockets | |
Maiden flights | |
Retirements | |
Crewed flights | |
Orbital | 4 |
Orbital travellers | 14 |
Suborbital | 2 |
Suborbital travellers | 12 |
Total travellers | 26 |
In terms of other national-level scientific space missions, NASA's Europa Clipper probe, NASA's EscaPADE probe, ESA's Hera probe, and NISAR Earth observation satellite are planned to launch in 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 will also host private crews of Axiom Mission 3 and Axiom Mission 4. The ISS is also expected to see docking of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser Demo-1.
This year saw Alper Gezeravcı become the first Turkish astronaut, as a crew member on Axiom Mission 3. Belarus also had its first citizen reach space, when cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya 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).