Five Major Space Missions of 2026

In the first half of the year, four astronauts will fly around the Moon for the first time since the Apollo missions of the late 1960s. The goal: to begin testing the Orion spacecraft they will be flying in preparation for a future human landing on the Moon.

Attention will also be focused on China: in the summer, the country will send astronauts to the darkest corners of the Moon in search of clues as to whether life could ever exist there.

The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch a mission to determine if humans can protect Earth from asteroids. It will also place a spacecraft into orbit to study Earth's magnetic field and launch a second orbital mission to Mercury.

Here are the key space missions of 2026 to watch out for.

Four Astronauts to Fly Around the Moon in Artemis II Mission

2026 will be the "Year of the Moon," according to Monica Grady, a professor of planetary and space sciences at the Open University in the UK.

This year will see two major lunar missions worth noting. The first mission: Artemis II, during which three American astronauts and one Canadian will undertake a 10-day flyby of the Moon.

The astronauts will test key life support systems of the Orion spacecraft in preparation for a future human landing on the Moon.

The astronauts will travel approximately 4,700 miles (over 7,500 kilometers) beyond the far side of the Moon; from there, they will see Earth and the Moon through the spacecraft's windows.

According to Grady, this is a significant moment: the astronauts will be closer to the Moon than they have been since the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s.

"This is really a big event," Grady said. "And, as hoped, this will be the final mission in preparation for astronauts' return to the Moon."

Chinese Version of Lunar Landing

The second lunar mission attracting attention in 2026: Chang’e 7, during which Chinese astronauts will explore the Moon's south pole.

The mission will involve a "hopper," a device that will jump from illuminated areas into shadowed craters in search of ice, water, or "volatile substances," according to a press release.

Tan Yuhua, the deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-7 mission, told state media that discovering ice at the Moon's south pole could significantly reduce the cost and time of transporting water from Earth for longer missions to Mars and beyond.

China hopes that the mission will yield several technological breakthroughs, such as using intelligent robots to explore the harsh polar regions of the Moon.

This is also an opportunity for China to strengthen international ties. Beijing has stated that the Chang’e 7 mission will carry six payloads from Egypt, Bahrain, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, Thailand, and the International Lunar Observatory Association.

"Impact Site Investigation" for Planetary Defense

In the fall, ESA will study an asteroid to improve ground-based systems for protecting against future objects that may collide with our planet.

In 2024, ESA sent a spacecraft to study the impact site on the asteroid where the United States deliberately directed a spacecraft in 2022. The spacecraft will arrive at the impact site in November to measure the size of the crater left by the spacecraft on Dimorphos.

This mission is a continuation of NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which was launched to Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting an asteroid called Didymos.

The goal of that mission was to understand how effectively spacecraft can protect humans from objects heading toward Earth.

According to ESA, scientists will be able to use new data returned by the Hera mission to refine asteroid deflection technologies in case they are ever needed.

Measuring Earth's "Magnetosphere"

European scientists are preparing a mission for April or May that will take detailed X-ray images of Earth's magnetic envelope.

The magnetosphere protects Earth and all its inhabitants from streams of charged particles known as solar wind.

"Without the magnetosphere, life on planet Earth could not exist," ESA noted.

The Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission will place a three-meter spacecraft into orbit, equipped with tracking systems and onboard antennas. The spacecraft will track how, where, and when solar wind interacts with our planet.

The SMILE mission will help scientists close gaps in understanding processes in the Solar System and will aid in keeping technologies and astronauts safe in the future, according to ESA.

During the mission, the spacecraft will rise to an altitude of up to 121,000 kilometers above the North Pole, which is one-third of the way to the Moon. It will also collect up to 45 hours of continuous observations of soft X-ray and ultraviolet radiation per orbit.

Mission to Mercury

Also in 2026, European and Japanese orbital spacecraft will enter Mercury's orbit for the first time.

According to ESA, Mercury is considered the least explored planet in the Solar System, as it is challenging to send spacecraft close to the Sun without exposing them to intense gravitational pull.

The so-called BepiColombo mission has already transmitted some data to scientists from numerous flybys since its launch in 2018. However, in 2026, the spacecraft will enter the planet's orbit for the first time.

Once the two orbital spacecraft enter orbit, they will gather information about the planet's magnetic environment and its internal core. They will also create global maps of the planet's surface.

The information that ESA collects on Mercury will "shed light on the history of the entire Solar System," the agency notes.