December 30, 2025
4 min read
Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm
Here’s What to Get Excited about in Space in 2026
From crewed lunar voyages to flight tests of fully reusable rockets and launches of new orbital telescopes studying the outer limits of the cosmos, 2026 should be a banner year for space science and exploration
NASA’s Artemis II Space Launch System rocket seen during a test on December 20, 2025.
It’s a big universe out there—13.8 billion years old, full of hundreds of billions of star-and-planet-packed galaxies and, out past the limits of our sight, perhaps infinite in all directions. But as vast and inscrutable as the cosmos may seem, we’re poised for 2026 to be a banner year in bettering our understanding of how it works and our place within it while setting new milestones in spaceflight.
Return to the Moon
The most obviously exciting space event for the coming year is the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission, which could occur as early as February. Taking four astronauts on a 10-day voyage around the moon, Artemis II will mark the first human presence in our natural satellite’s vicinity since the early 1970s and will set the stage for subsequent crewed forays to the lunar surface. Artemis II will also be a critical test of hardware for later Artemis missions: it will be the first crewed flight of NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket and accompanying Orion spacecraft.
On supporting science journalism
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
An artist’s rendering of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander and the UAE’s Rashid 2 rover on the moon.
Artemis II will be only the beginning of an action-packed year for lunar exploration. Other highlights include Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 2—set to deliver NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) payloads to the moon in late 2026—and China’s Chang’e 7 mission, which will head to the lunar south pole in the second half of the year.
Our Nearest Neighbors
Next year should also see new voyages to Earth’s nearest planetary neighbors, Mars and Venus. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is scheduled to launch in 2026 on a trip to the Martian moon Phobos, where it will collect samples for return to Earth. And Venus Life Finder, a private collaboration between the aerospace firm Rocket Lab and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will launch in the summer to seek signs of biology in our sister planet’s clouds.
An artist’s rendering of the Japanese Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission.
Close-ups for Asteroids and Comets
Meanwhile 2026 could see big progress in studies of asteroids and comets. China’s sample-return mission Tianwen-2 will reach and gather material from the asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa in early summer to midsummer, and near year’s end, ESA’s Hera mission will arrive at the binary asteroid 65803 Didymos to study the aftermath of NASA’s earlier Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact mission.
The asteroid on most people’s mind next year may be 2024 YR4, a space rock that for a few weeks in 2025 appeared to pose a decent chance of striking Earth in 2032; subsequent studies of 2024 YR4’s orbit ruled out that possibility, but uncertainty remains as to whether the asteroid could strike the moon to send debris showering toward us. Fortunately, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could clear things up with additional observations of the asteroid in spring 2026.
A panoramic image taken by China’s Chang’e-6 mission on the far side of the moon in 2024.
CNSA/Handout via Xinhu via Alamy
And in the coming year, JWST and a host of other telescopes will also continue their studies of 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar comet discovered passing through our solar system.
New Eyes on the Sky
Speaking of telescopes, several are starting work in 2026 that could forever change our views of the cosmos. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may launch later in the year and start its mission to study large-scale cosmic structures to help clarify the still-mysterious nature of dark matter and dark energy. China’s Xuntian space telescope may launch as well; one of its primary goals is to make similar science observations. And the ground-based Vera C. Rubin Observatory, although officially beginning operations in 2025, will ramp up its panoramic observations of the heavens in 2026 to discover oodles of new asteroids, comets, supernovae and other transient celestial phenomena.
The element assembly wheel of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
The Rise of Reusable Rocketry
In terms of sheer effect, however, the biggest events for space science in 2026 aren’t really acts of science at all. Rather, they’re flights of giant new rockets offering novel and transformative launch capabilities. SpaceX’s flight tests of its in-development Starship, a notionally fully reusable rocket that is also the world’s largest and most powerful, are set to continue throughout 2026. And after successful debuts in 2025, other partially reusable rockets—namely, New Glenn from Blue Origin, as well as Zhuque-3 from the Chinese commercial company LandSpace—are slated for additional flights in 2026, encroaching on SpaceX’s decade-long effective monopoly on rapid, reusable orbital launch services.
An artist’s rendering of SpaceX’s Starship system conducting a refueling in orbit.
This ongoing meteoric rise of reusability is already causing launch costs to plummet while launch rates skyrocket, allowing the creation of a more active, diverse and robust space economy in which far more opportunities exist for science and exploration. Thanks to a packed docket of launches with these innovative rockets, in the fullness of time 2026 may be remembered as the year when early space-age dreams of nigh-ubiquitous and routine spaceflight actually became reality.
It’s Time to Stand Up for Science
If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.
There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.
