Notable spaceflight events during the year 2026.

Overview

Astronomy and astrophysics On 11 January, NASA launched the Pandora small space telescope to study exoplanet atmospheres. The same Falcon 9 flight also carried two CubeSat-type space telescopes by NASA: SPARCS and BlackCAT, alongside other payloads. Pandora completed its commissioning phase and started scientific observations in August 2026.

In February, ESA's experimental heliophysics mission PROBA-3 suffered an anomaly which led to the loss of contact with one of the two spacecraft. Contact was re-established with PROBA-3 in March and the spacecraft resumed observations in July.

On 19 May, ESA and CAS launched their joint heliophysics mission SMILE to study the dynamic interaction between solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere. The spacecraft reached its final science orbit on 20 June and started science observations on 23 September.

On 3 July, Katalyst Space Technologies launched the Swift boost mission under a contract from NASA to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory by boosting it to a higher orbit. They used the LINK spacecraft launched on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL aircraft-borne rocket. This was the final launch of Pegasus XL and means there are no remaining active orbital air launch systems anywhere in the world. Once in orbit, LINK suffered a series of technical issues, and on 19 August, NASA cancelled the rescue efforts.

On 30 August, NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an infrared space telescope for cosmology and search for exoplanets, to Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2.

In 2026, NASA plans to launch the SunRISE mission consisting of six CubeSats for studying solar activity.

Taiwan plans to launch its first space telescope, the Gamma-ray Transients Monitor (GTM), as a secondary payload on the Formosat-8B satellite, in December.

Solar system exploration On 15 May, NASA's Psyche spacecraft performed a gravity assist maneuver at Mars, flying 4,500 km from the planet's surface on its way to the asteroid Psyche.

In July 2026, humanity got the first close-up views of two new Solar system objects. CNSA's Tianwen-2 arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa, a quasi-satellite of Earth, for sample collection and JAXA's Hayabusa2 flew by the near-Earth asteroid Torifune.

The joint ESA-JAXA mission BepiColombo is expected to enter orbit around Mercury in late 2026. The arrival operations began on 3 September 2026 with the separation of the propulsion module from the remaining spacecraft.

On 20 October, JAXA plans to launch the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission to the moons of Mars with the aim of bringing back the first samples from Phobos. The mission also carries the European Phobos rover Idefix.

ESA's Hera spacecraft is expected to arrive at the double asteroid Didymos in November.

On 15 November, Voyager 1 will be one light-day from Earth.

In November, NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft are expected to perform a gravity assist maneuver at Earth that will send them towards Mars.

On 24 December, ESA's Solar Orbiter is expected to perform its 5th Venus flyby, which will tilt its heliocentric orbit from 17° to 24°.

Lunar exploration

No earlier than November, NASA and Astrobotic plan to launch Griffin Mission One aiming to land near the Moon's south pole.

Human spaceflight

International Space Station On 8 January, Mike Fincke, one of Crew-11 astronauts on the ISS, suffered a serious medical issue, which included a loss of ability to speak for approximately 20 minutes. In response, NASA called off a spacewalk that was under preparation at that time and later decided to return the entire Crew-11 mission back to Earth earlier than planned in a "controlled medical evacuation". This marks the first time in U.S. history, as well as in the ISS program, that a space mission has been cut short due to a medical issue, although such cases happened before during Soviet space station missions."Illness in orbit" by Bart Hendrickx (March 2011). Spaceflight. 53 (3). British Interplanetary Society: 104–109. (archived) The Crew Dragon Endeavour with all 4 crew members of Crew-11 safely splashed down off California coast on 15 January.

On 13 February, NASA launched the first crewed spaceflight of the year, the Crew-12 mission carrying four NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos astronauts to ISS, returning the station to its normal crew complement of seven in a rare indirect handover caused by the early return of Crew-11. The second crewed flight of the year to ISS was Soyuz MS-29 launched on 14 July and the third was Crew-13 launched on 1 October.

On 22 March, Roscosmos launched Progress MS-33 to ISS, the first space station uncrewed cargo flight of the year and the first launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 31 after substantial repairs necessitated by the damage caused by the November 2025 launch of Soyuz MS-28. Further resupply missions to ISS were: Cygnus NG-24 on 11 April, Progress MS-34 on 25 April, SpaceX CRS-34 on 15 May, and Progress MS-35 on 16 September.

No earlier than December 2026, NASA and Boeing plan to launch the uncrewed ISS cargo mission Starliner-1, the fourth orbital flight of the Starliner spacecraft.

NASA and Sierra Space plan to launch Dream Chaser Demo-1, the first free flyer orbital demonstration flight of the uncrewed cargo spaceplane Dream Chaser.

Artemis program On 30 January, Blue Origin announced that it will pause the New Shepard suborbital space tourism program for "at least two years" in order to focus on crewed lunar exploration. On 9 February, SpaceX likewise announced a delay in its Mars ambitions for "about five to seven years" in order to focus on lunar missions.

On 27 February, NASA announced a number of changes to the Artemis program with the stated purpose of increasing its cadence of missions, including changing the Artemis III mission to a LEO demonstration flight, moving the first Artemis Moon landing to Artemis IV, and replacing the Exploration Upper Stage with another stage, later identified as Centaur V.

On 1 April 2026, NASA launched the Artemis II mission on the Space Launch System, sending astronauts around the Moon on a ten-day lunar flyby. On 6 April, Artemis II became the farthest human spaceflight in history when it surpassed the previous distance record of Apollo 13. The mission's re-entry capsule Integrity safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean southwest of San Diego on 11 April 2026.

Chinese lunar program On 11 February, China performed a successful in-flight abort test of the new Mengzhou spacecraft, which verified the spacecraft's launch escape system performance, as well as the Long March 10A first stage ability of soft landing on water. Later in 2026 or possibly in 2027, China plans to launch Mengzhou 1, the first uncrewed orbital flight of the spacecraft and the complete Long March 10A rocket, both intended for the country's crewed lunar program.

Tiangong space station On 30 March, China launched a prototype of the new cargo spacecraft Qingzhou on the first flight of the Kinetica 2 rocket. Once in orbit, the spacecraft conducted a series of rendezvous and proximity operations tests involving another satellite.

On 11 May, China launched its first Tiangong space station resupply mission of the year, Tianzhou 10, followed by the first Chinese crewed spaceflight of the year, Shenzhou 23, on 24 May.

Indian human spaceflight program ISRO aims to launch Gaganyaan-1, India's first uncrewed orbital test flight to support human exploration missions.

Rocket innovation On 12 February, Arianespace launched 32 Amazon Leo satellites on the first flight of Ariane 64, the 4-booster variant of Ariane 6, marking the first successful orbital maiden flight of the year. Other successful first flights to orbit were achieved by the Chinese Kinetica 2, Long March 12B, Long March 10B, and Pallas-1, the Russian Soyuz-5, the Japanese H3-30S, and the Indian Vikram-1.

SpaceX continued testing the Starship system, with a partially successful suborbital Flight 12 in May, a mostly successful suborbital Flight 13 in July, and a mostly successful orbital Flight 14 in September.

On 10 July, China became the second nation to successfully recover a booster after orbital flight, when a Long March 10B's first stage landed on a net-like structure on a ship at sea during its maiden flight. The second Chinese launcher to achieve first-stage recovery was Zhuque-3, after a successful orbital launch on 18 August.

On 11 July, JAXA conducted the first VTVL flight test of its RV-X small reusable rocket demonstrator. The vehicle serves as a technology pathfinder for CALLISTO, a larger European-Japanese demonstrator rocket under development in collaboration between JAXA, CNES, and DLR. ESA plans first test flights of the Themis reusable rocket demonstrator in late 2026.

On 18 July, Skyroot Aerospace launched Vikram 1, India's first commercially built rocket, with a successful flight carrying multiple payloads to Low Earth Orbit.

On 5 September, the German company Isar Aerospace, supported by ESA, successfully launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Spaceport in Norway, marking the first orbital launch from West European soil.

Satellite technology In January, Hisdesat announced that the Spainsat NG II communications satellite launched in October 2025 for Spanish government and military use was struck by a “space particle" while on its way to Geostationary orbit and suffered non-recoverable damage.

On 12 January, the Spanish space capsule company Orbital Paradigm, supported by ESA's FLPP, launched its first technology demonstration mission. The KID capsule was expected to re-enter Earth atmosphere after reaching orbit on the PSLV-C62 flight. The Indian PSLV rocket failed in flight but KID separated from the falling launch vehicle and managed to transmit flight data during its non-nominal suborbital flight, thus becoming the lone survivor of 2026's first launch failure.

On 27 January, the EU announced that the EUSPA's GOVSATCOM program for encrypted communications is now operational, integrating eight satellites from five EU member states. The program serves as an operational bridge to the planned IRIS2 constellation. In March, Cyprus became the first country to use GOVSATCOM operationally, possibly in connection with the 2026 Iran war or the country's Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The IRIS2 project entered its implementation phase in August.

In March 2026, the Chinese company Sustain Space demonstrated on-orbit operations of a flexible robotic arm for satellite servicing and refuelling on its Xiyuan-0 satellite launched on a Kuaizhou-11 rocket on 16 March 2026.

On 28 March, ESA launched the first two satellites of the GNSS augmentation constellation Celeste (LEO-PNT) on a Rocket Lab's Electron rocket. The mission delivered its first navigation signals on 8 April 2026.

On 3 May, the German ICARUS Initiative launched its first operational satellite of the ICARUS 2.0 constellation, built by the Bulgarian company EnduroSat and named RAVEN, for tracking animal migrations.

On 27 August, Ariane 6 performed its first geostationary orbit mission, launching the European weather satellite MTG-I2 (Meteosat-14), which completed the first trio of MTG satellites. In a further expansion of its Earth observation satellite fleet, Europe launched ESA's FLEX for monitoring terrestrial vegetation by measuring chlorophyll fluorescence together with the oceanography satellite Sentinel-3C for the EU's Copernicus Programme on a single flight of the Vega C rocket on 15 September. Then in October, Ariane 6 will launch the second MetOp-SG weather satellite, MetOp-SG B1 carrying microwave imagers and radars, to low Earth orbit.