Space missions covered the solar system in 2024

From monitoring Mercury to embarking on a new adventure on an icy moon of Jupiter, spacecraft and astronauts made great strides in 2024. Here are some of the highlights of this year in space.

New lunar visitors

The moon has been a hot destination for space agencies and private companies in recent years, and 2024 was no exception.

In January, Japan’s SLIM spacecraft made a successful but side-by-side landing on the rim of a crater, marking the country’s first soft landing on the Moon. The intelligent solar-powered Lunar Probe lander was designed to collect data for one lunar day, or about two weeks on Earth, before night falls and it becomes too dark and cold to survive. But SLIM surprised everyone by sending signals to Earth for three months.

SLIM was joined by another inadvertent side-lander in February. Odysseus, a spacecraft built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, crashed and crashed near the lunar south pole. During its six-day mission, the probe sent back data that could guide NASA’s Artemis mission, which aims to land humans on the moon in 2026 (SN: 23/3/24, p. 16).

Finally, China’s Chang’e 6 spacecraft grabbed the first samples from the far side of the moon in June (SN: 29.6.24, p. 12). A first look at the samples revealed soil that is fluffier than the soil on the nearby side. A chemical analysis of the samples, reported in Naturesuggests that Farside was volcanically active about 2.8 billion years ago (SN: 15.11.24).

Meanwhile, the Chang’e 6 orbiter appeared in a place orbiting the sun called L2, the same region of space that is occupied by the James Webb Space Telescope. It is not yet clear what the Chinese space agency plans to do with it there.

Moments in Mars

2024 opened with the farewell of a beloved Martian explorer. NASA’s Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny, was the first helicopter to operate on the Red Planet. The ship had to fly several times during the 30 days; instead, it took 72 flights over almost three years. The space probe was finally grounded in January after its rotor blades were damaged (SN: 1/25/24).

Ingenuity’s companion, the Perseverance rover, made perhaps its most important discovery yet in July: a rock containing hints of ancient microbes (SN: 24.8.24, p. 6). But the revelation came against a backdrop of uncertainty: the budget for NASA’s planned sample-return mission to Mars is in jeopardy (SN: 6/15/24, p. 12)meaning that the intriguing piece of rock may not be returned to Earth for further study.

The ups and downs of private spaceflight

Four years after SpaceX became the first private company to launch astronauts to the International Space Station, the company supported another commercial milestone: the first all-civilian spacewalk. (SN: 5/27/20). The Polaris Dawn mission launched four astronauts to the space station in September. The crew tested SpaceX’s new suits and collected data on radiation and astronaut physiology. A crew member, Sarah Gillis, also became the first person to play the violin in space.

Another private company had a harder time. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft launched astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station in early June for an eight-day mission, but problems with the spacecraft’s thrusters delayed the astronauts’ return. The Starliner returned to Earth in September without its crew. Williams and Wilmore will remain on the space station until February, when a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will bring them home.

The end of an era of asteroid hunting

Earth lost a planetary protector this year. In August, NASA said goodnight to the NEOWISE telescope after spending more than a decade scanning the sky for threatening asteroids.

NEOWISE was launched in 2009 with a mission to study infrared light from distant cosmic objects (SN: 12/10/09). When the telescope ran out of coolant, scientists reused it to observe asteroids approaching Earth, which also emit infrared light thanks to heat from the sun.

During its lifetime, NEOWISE observed thousands of asteroids and hundreds of comets, giving scientists a more accurate understanding of the dangers these space rocks pose to Earth. The loss of the telescope leaves us somewhat in the dark, but fortunately not for long. Another asteroid hunter, NEO Surveyor, is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2027.

New views of Mercury

The BepiColombo spacecraft made a close flyby of Mercury on September 4, taking its first view of the planet’s south pole.

The joint European and Japanese probe took off for Mercury in October 2018 and still has about two years to go before it arrives. Because Mercury is so close to the sun and its gravitational pull, it is not easy to maneuver a spacecraft into orbit around the small planet. BepiColombo is making close passes of Mercury and using the planet’s gravity to push it on course to enter orbit in November 2026.

A flyby this year gave the spacecraft views of Mercury it won’t get even while in orbit. BepiColombo approached from the night side of Mercury, so the planet’s crater rims cast deep shadows that could reveal new details about their topography.

The next flight will be on January 8.

Europe, ah!

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft launched on October 14, bound for an icy moon of Jupiter that may have the conditions for life to exist (SN: 10/8/24). Because Europa hosts an ocean of liquid water beneath a thick shell of ice, it is among the top contenders for extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

After Clipper reaches Jupiter in 2030, the spacecraft will make nearly 50 flybys of the moon to study its subsurface ocean. Clipper will not orbit Europa directly because of Jupiter’s intense magnetic field, which blocks high amounts of technology-disrupting radiation near the Moon. Instead, Clipper will dip in and out of this radiation field to avoid prolonged exposure, taking data and then drifting off to recover before diving back in.