The year 2025 saw several significant space-related developments, including the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station and the return to Earth of NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore after being stranded on the ISS for 286 days.
The focus now turns to what 2026 has in store for mankind’s space ambitions. Here are the top five missions worth paying attention to in 2026:
NASA’s Artemis II
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Artemis II is set to launch by April 2026. The four astronauts will venture around the moon aboard the space agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. Artemis II will be the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establish a long-term presence on the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis.
Artemis II The US space agency said it also aims to lay the groundwork for the first manned mission to Mars. The 10-day flight will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This mission aims to build on the success of the unmanned Artemis I in 2022 and demonstrate a wide range of capabilities required for deep space missions.
The commander of this mission will be Reed Wiseman, while Victor Glover will operate the spacecraft. Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will be the mission specialists. The crew will fly about 4,700 miles from the far side of the moon, and from this vantage point, they will be able to see Earth and the moon through Orion’s windows, with the moon close in the foreground and Earth about a quarter-million miles in the background.
Artemis II This will be followed by another visit by Orion and its crew. This time itself, under the Artemis III mission, astronauts will once again take a long leap by walking on the surface of the Moon.
This will be NASA’s first manned mission to orbit the Moon since Apollo 8 in 1968.
ISRO’s Gaganyaan test
In 2024, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) began preparations for the Gaganyaan project, which was approved in 2019. Gaganyaan Project It aims to launch three crew members into a 400-km orbit for a three-day mission and return them safely to Earth by splashing down in Indian sea waters.
LVM3, ISRO’s proven and reliable heavy lift launcher, will be the launch vehicle for Gaganyaan MissionThe launch vehicle will be reconfigured to meet human rating requirements and converted to a human rated LVM3 or HLVM3, It will launch the orbital module into a desired low Earth orbit of 400 km,
The space agency said HLVM3 includes a Crew Escape System (CES), powered by a set of quick-acting, high burn rate solid motors, which ensures that the crew module is evacuated in the event of any emergency, either on the launch pad or during the ascent phase, with the crew at a safe distance.
News agency PTI reported that the human-rated LVM 3 will be launched in early 2026, carrying the first unmanned mission of Gaganyaan with the robot ‘Vyomamitra’ on the crew module.
ISRO Planning to launch your crew Gaganyaan Mission In low Earth orbit in 2027.
SpaceX’s mission Mars
Elon MuskSpaceX plans to launch the first Starship to Mars in 2026, which will collect vital data upon entry and landing, serving as a precursor to future crew and cargo deliveries to the planet’s surface.
Musk’s space firm said establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars would require more than a million people and millions of tons of cargo on the planet.
according to SpaceX website, Starship will launch more than 10 times per day to maximize the transfer window that opens approximately every 26 months, and it will eventually transfer crew and equipment to create a permanent presence on another world.
The space agency’s website explained the reason behind choosing the red planet for building a habitable city and said that Mars is one of Earth’s nearest habitable neighbors at an average distance of 140 million miles.
The website states, “Mars is about half as far from the Sun as Earth, so it still has good sunlight. It’s a little cold, but we can warm it. Its atmosphere is mainly C02 with some nitrogen and argon and a few other trace elements, which means we can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere.”
Mars has about 38 percent of Earth’s gravity, which enables humans to lift heavy things and move around. Additionally, this day is also remarkably close to Earth. While Earth has 24 hours, Mars has 24 hours and 37 minutes. Mars is 4.5 billion years old.
Starship – the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – is a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. spacex State.
Starship is capable of carrying up to 150 metric tons of fully reusable and 250 metric tons of expendable cargo.
According to SpaceX’s website, Starship will enter the red planet’s atmosphere at a speed of 7.5 kilometers per second and will slow down aerodynamically. The vehicle’s heat shield is said to be designed to withstand multiple entries; However, given that a vehicle entering the Martian atmosphere experiences high levels of atomic oxygen, we expect to see harsh conditions during entry.
Additionally, SpaceX plans to launch Starship cargo flights to the surface of Mars at a rate of $100 million per metric ton for research, development, and exploratory missions starting in the 2030s.
UAE Rashid Rover 2
The United Arab Emirates is planning to launch a mission to the far side of the Moon in 2026. The Arab country’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) has completed development of its lunar mission Rashid Rover 2 and it will be launched on US-based Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 2 lunar lander.
The Emirates Lunar Mission aims to develop a series of rovers to explore the lunar surface at different locations with various scientific objectives.
uae space agency Said rover built under the Emirates Lunar Mission is named “Rashid” rover after the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the creator of modern Dubai.
Rasheed 2 is the second rover under the Emirates lunar programme, designed, developed and manufactured by MBRSC.
According to the MBRSC website, Rashid 2 has three main objectives:
- Study geological and thermal aspects of the Moon’s surface at various locations to understand the properties and transformation processes of lunar dust.
- Study and map the electric charge process and the formation of electron shells on the surface during an entire lunar day.
- To conduct science and engineering experiments related to materials, dynamics and terramechanics.
Rashid 2 will be the UAE’s second attempt to land a rover on the lunar surface, following the failed Rashid 1 mission in April 2023. The UAE sent Rashid 1 in partnership with a Japanese company, iSpace’s Hakuto-R mission, the UAE’s national newspaper reports. informed,
Rashid 1 was unsuccessful as the Japanese lander crashed on the lunar surface.
Now, Firefly Aerospace, headquartered in Central Texas, has teamed up with the UAE’s MBRSC to help land the Rashid 2 rover on the far side of the moon aboard the US-based agency’s Blue Ghost lander.
The Texas-based company’s website says Rashid 2 will join Firefly Aerospace’s second lunar mission in 2026 with payloads from Australia, the European Space Agency and NASA as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
European Space Agency henon cubesat
The European Space Agency plans to launch the Hainan CubeSat mission, which aims to perform space weather measurements in Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) for three to six-hour advanced warning of solar storms.
Heliospheric Pioneer for Solar and Interplanetary Threats Defense (HENON) is an upcoming 12U XL CubeSat mission, according to NASA. ESA websiteThe mission, which will be a demo of deep space CubeSat technologies, will also perform transfer from Sun-Earth L1/L2 to DRO using electric propulsion,
The launch of the mission is planned for December 2026.
The payload of the Henon CubeSat will include an energetic particle flux telescope (proto/electron/heavy iron), a magnetometer on the boom, and a Faraday cup analyzer.
According to ESA’s website, Henon is a “stand-alone deep space CubeSat demonstrator mission that targets space weather observations from a remote retrograde orbit (DRO) in the Sun–Earth system to enhance forecasting capabilities and science”.
According to ESA, the Henon mission has four major objectives. And these are:
- To demonstrate real-time in-situ monitoring of the space environment in deep space for space weather forecasting instruments and services.
- To demonstrate the provision of timely real-time alerts with significantly increased warning times compared to L1 above Earth.
- For the first time, to operate a spacecraft in unknown DRO orbits.
- To demonstrate reliable use of CubeSat technologies in deep space.
European Space Agency It has been said that advances in space weather forecasting require longer advance warnings for solar storms described as “coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and their resulting solar proton events (SPEs)”.
The spacecraft, located at the L1 Lagrange point between the Sun and Earth, will provide advanced warning today, and Vigil at L5 will provide data in the 2030s.
“By using DRO’s sunward (at ~0.1 AU from Earth) measurements, which have never been explored before, the Henon 12U XL CubeSat will be able to significantly improve advance warning time and therefore predict major solar events compared to spacecraft at Sun-Earth L1,” the ESA website reads.
