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The Golden Records mounted on the Voyagers will no longer be readable due to interstellar erosion.

Pioneer 11 Reaches First Star in Sagittarius

Pioneer 10 Reaches Aldebaran in Taurus

Voyager 2 passes within 4.3 light-years of Sirius

Voyager 1 arrives 1.6 light-years from the star AC+79 38888 Camelopardis and is captured by its gravity (it is currently in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, or the direction of the Solar Apex: the direction in which the Sun points in its motion around

Cape Canaveral, Florida. A Space X Falcon Heavy rocket successfully launches NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s Galilean moon Europa.

Boca Chica, Texas. Space X successfully launches the fifth test flight of Starship. The massive first stage re-enters, incredibly successfully on the first try, all the way back to base and is caught by the Mechazilla’s chopsticks. The Starship spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere over the

The astronauts of the Polaris Dawn mission operated by Space X, perform a spacewalk (EVA – Extra Vehicular Activity) at an altitude of 743 km. This is the first EVA outside of LEO (Low Earth orbit) in over half a century (i.e. since the Apollo

China. It has been experimentally proven, by analyzing samples brought back to Earth by the Chinese Chang’e-5 mission, that typical lunar ULM-1 crystals contain a lot of water. And they were taken in 2020 from a part of the Moon at mid-latitude, at 43 degrees

Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Europe’s new heavy rocket, Ariane 6, makes its maiden flight from 16:00 local time on 9 July (21:00 CEST). Ariane 6 is the latest in Europe’s Ariane rocket series, succeeding the Ariane 5 and featuring a modular and versatile design

The Chang’e 6 mission’s atmospheric reentry probe successfully re-enters the Moon’s far side, carrying precious samples of rocks and lunar regolith collected near the lunar South Pole.

Using data from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, scientists have determined that the solar system’s smallest planet, Mercury, may be hiding a not-so-small secret: “a diamond mantle more than 10 kilometers thick.”

New Mexico, USA: Galactic 07, Virgin Galactic’s seventh commercial suborbital spaceflight, launches from Spaceport America in New Mexico. VSS Unity, the second SpaceShipTwo, carried four passengers (Tuva Cihangir Atasever, Anand “Andy” Harish Sadhwani, Irving Izchak Pergament, Giorgio Manenti).

Bill Anders, the astronaut in the famous Apollo VIII photo, dies in a plane crash he was piloting on San Juan Island, near Seattle, Washington. He was 90 years old.

In lunar orbit, the docking between the ascent module and the orbital transfer module of the Chang’e 6 probe took place successfully. The rock and regolith samples were transferred into the capsule located inside the transfer module.

The fourth launch of Starship with the Super Heavy launcher is successful and the launcher manages to re-enter, slow down to a stop on the water in a vertical and controlled position, as planned, before plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. The following hour the Starship

Boeing’s Starliner with ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V has launched astronauts into space. Second private American to do so. Two days later it will dock with the ISS space station, carrying astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

The Chinese Chang’e-6 mission successfully lands on the floor (about 5000 meters below the mean lunar level) of the large Aitken crater, on the far side of the Moon, near the South Pole. It releases a small rover that then picks up the mother probe.

Boca Chica, Texas — SpaceX’s Starship rocket, designed to send astronauts to the moon and Mars, completed nearly a full test flight through space on its third try, going farther than ever before, but disintegrated on its return over the Indian Ocean.

Malapert A Crater, South Pole of the Moon. The Odysseus spacecraft lands on the lunar surface. After touching down, it falls on its side, but its instruments remain functional and the first photos will arrive after a few days. The Texas-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines,

The Japanese Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) lands in Mare Nectaris, in the eastern equatorial zone of the visible face of the Moon. The probe, it later discovers, has landed upside down, due to a problem with

The Psyche probe has left for the asteroid of the same name. The first M-type (metallic) asteroid to be observed up close. It will reach it in 2029. The heavy metals on Psyche are worth 10 thousand quadrillion dollars (Today the economy of our planet

Touchdown! The substantial sample of the asteroid Bennu has arrived on Earth, arrived on the Osiris Rex probe, which launched in 2016 and explored the asteroid from 2018 to 2021. The mother probe, which remained in space, can now continue on to another target: the

Moon, near the South Pole. The Pragyan rover descends from the Indian spacecraft Vikram (Chandrayaan-3 mission).

India’s spacecraft Vikram (“courage”) of the Chandrayaan-3 mission is on the Moon, near the South Pole. It is the second nation so far in the 21st century to land on the Moon. Both nations are Asian.

Moon. The Russian Luna-25 mission crashes on the Moon, after losing contact with the control center on Earth.

Vostochny, Amur, Russian Far East (almost on the border with China). An R-7 Soyuz 2.1b rocket launches the Luna-25 mission, the first historic lunar mission, 47 years after Luna-24. The Luna-25 mission is competing with the Indian Chandrayaan-3 mission, which launched on July 14. The

Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India. The LVM3 M4 rocket launches the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon. It is competing with the Russian Luna-25 mission, which, despite being launched several days later, is scheduled to land two days earlier than the Indian mission; this is due

Boca Chica, Texas. Space X’s Starship, powered by the Super-Heavy booster, successfully leaves the launch pad. However, several things go wrong: the ramp is badly damaged, some engines do not ignite and others turn off shortly after launch, and finally the Starship does not separate

French Guiana, South America. An Ariane-5 successfully launches the European interplanetary probe Juice, toward Jupiter’s Galilean moons, to study in particular the oceans beneath the icy crusts of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Return of the Orion capsule of the Artemis-I mission

NASA launches the Artemis I mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:47 a.m. ET, aboard the agency’s most powerful rocket ever, the Space Launch System (SLS). With no astronauts aboard, the SLS carries the Orion capsule into space in a demonstration for NASA’s Artemis lunar

The U.S. Army’s X-37B spacecraft has finally completed its sixth mission, landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida after spending a record-breaking 908 days in orbit, more than four months longer than any previous X-37B flight. The Boeing-built spacecraft also carried a service

NASA’s DART spacecraft impacts the asteroid Dimorphos (200 m in diameter), a satellite of the larger asteroid Didymos (750 m in diameter). The impact is photographed by the Italian cubesat Licia Cube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids). The DART demonstration was carefully designed.

NASA, in a press conference, reveals the possible landing sites for Artemis III. There are 13 sites, all within 6 degrees of the lunar South Pole: Faustini Rim A, Peak Near Shackleton, Connecting Ridge, Connecting Ridge Extension, two regions on the rim of de Gerlache

Cape Canaveral. 5:17 p.m. A Space-X Falcon-9 launcher takes off, representing the first private human mission to the ISS space station. They are 3 entrepreneurs who paid $55 million and a veteran NASA astronaut. The company and the American Axiom, which intends to develop 4

Early on Christmas morning, NASA’s revolutionary new space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, is successfully launched into space after blasting off atop a European Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. The launch marks the start of one of NASA’s most anticipated missions in decades,

NASA reports that the American Parker probe has “touched” the Sun, or rather, it temporarily dives (at perihelion) inside (the upper part) of the solar atmosphere (i.e. the solar corona), samples some particles, and measures its magnetic field for the first time. In reality, the

Vanderberg, California. Launch of the DART mission, with a Space X Falcon 9, to reach the asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos and hit one of them (the small Dimorphos) to study the technology to divert the trajectory of NEO (Near Earth Objects) asteroids potentially dangerous to

Cape Canaveral, Florida. Launch aboard an Atlas V 401 of NASA’s Lucy mission, the first to the Trojan asteroids, at the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of Jupiter’s orbit.

William Shatner (Captain Kirk in Star Trek), 90 years old, is launched into space as an astro-tourist, together with the vice president of Blue Origin for flight operations, Audrey Powers and the entrepreneurs Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. The New Shpeard capsule of Jeff

Cape Canaveral, Florida. A billionaire e-commerce executive and three much less wealthy private citizens chosen to join him were launched by Space-X to a whopping 585km (much higher than the ISS and in fact the furthest a human has been since the end of NASA’s

Van Horn, Texas. Jeff Bezos (of Amazon and Blue Origin) and his brother Mark, along with Wally Funk (former Mercury 13 unofficial candidate for space travel in the 60s) and the Dutchman Oliver Daemen, reach space for 4 minutes, in a suborbital flight with the

New Mexico, USA. Richard Branson, of Virgin, makes his first flight into space, a suborbital flight at 82 km altitude, on the horizontal take-off vehicle called Unity. The aircraft has 6 occupants in total.

The Chinese mission Tianwen-1, manages to land the rover Zhurong on Mars. China thus becomes the second nation in the world, after the United States (first with Viking 1 and 2 in 1976), to succeed in making a controlled landing on the red planet, maintaining

NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft lifts off from orbit around the asteroid Bennu, carrying its massive, precious cargo of asteroid material, on its two-year journey to Earth.

Boca Chica, Texas. Space X’s Starship SN15 completes liftoff, flight, belly flop, approach, and landing for the first time. The previous four attempts had gone more or less well in the early stages, but crashed on landing.

China. Launch of the first module (Tianhe) of the Chinese space station Tiangong (Chinese: 天宫; “Palace in the Sky”), which is positioned in low Earth orbit between 340 and 450 km. Once completed, Tiangong will have a mass of between 80 and 100 t, about

The American Parker probe comes to “touch” the Sun, or rather, temporarily dives (at perihelion) inside (the upper part) of the solar atmosphere (i.e. the solar corona), samples some particles, and measures its magnetic field for the first time. In reality, the communication of the

Michael Collins dies. He was born in Rome, as his father had a military job at the US Embassy in Italy at the time. After attending the famous West Point Military Academy, he joined the Air Force, where he became a test pilot. In 1963,

Cape Canaveral. Third launch for Space X’s Crew Dragon, toward the ISS space station. The astronauts are Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur of NASA, Thomas Pesquet of ESA, and Akihiko Hoshide of JAXA.

Jezero Crater, Mars. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter makes its first automated flight. This is a first in space flight history. And it opens up previously unthinkable scenarios for the exploration of atmospheric worlds. The sky is NOT the limit. The atmospheric density on Mars is only

NASA’s Perseverance mission makes its entry into the Martian atmosphere, the so-called 7 minutes of terror. Everything goes according to plan, and the large rover lands gently on the ground, with the Ingenuity drone helicopter on board. A photo is also taken of the rover

The Tianwen-1 mission, carrying the rover, enters orbit around Mars.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Amal (Hope) probe enters Martian orbit.

Richard Branson’s Virgin launches satellite into orbit from high-altitude plane.

Boca Chica, southern tip of Texas. A prototype of Elon Musk’s Space X StarShip takes off, performs attitude control operations at 12 km altitude, glides with a lifting body profile, attempts to land in the correct spot, but at the last moment two of the

The reentry probe of the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission successfully lands in Australia and its precious contents, meteoritic soil from Ryugu, are brought to Japan for analysis.

Ocean of Storms, Moon. China’s Chang’e 5 probe lands successfully on the moon, collects a couple of kilograms of lunar soil, takes off again and automatically joins up with its mother probe in orbit.

Space-X successfully launches Dragon spacecraft with 4 NASA astronauts, which docks with the ISS space station. This is the first launch with NASA astronauts on Dragon

The American Osiris-Rex probe touches the asteroid Bennu, collects a sample, and immediately takes off again, as planned. It was launched in 2016.

Space X’s Crew Dragon capsule carrying American astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken successfully reenters the atmosphere and splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico, returning from the ISS space station. This is the first reentry of an American capsule since Space Shuttle missions, and

Cape Canaveral, Florida. An Atlas V 541 rocket launches NASA’s Perseverance rover toward Mars.

Wenchang Launch Site, China. A Long March 5 rocket launches the Tianwen-1 ( 天问 ) rover toward Mars. This time, in the 2020 race to Mars, the other contenders are the United Arab Emirates and the United States in this time window that opens every

Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. Launch of the Amal (Hope) probe, of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), launched by a Mitsubishi H-IIA carrier. It will arrive in Martian orbit on February 9, 2021.

Space X makes history by becoming the first private company to launch astronauts into orbit. It is also the first launch of American astronauts from American soil since 2011. The launch is carried out with the Falcon-9 and the Crew Dragon shuttle, which the following

Kazakhstan. Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano returns to Earth after 210 days on the ISS, as commander of Expedition 61 (first Italian and third European), and after participating in several EVAs for the repair of the AMS02 anti-matter observatory.

Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Falcon 9 (an example that had already flown 3 other times) leaves the pad and, 90s after launch, deliberately turns off its engines, the Dragon capsule separates and saves the virtual crew by splashing down, and the first

After half a century, some samples of lunar soil taken in December 1972 by the astronauts of Apollo 17 have been reopened. They had been left sealed at the time, awaiting future times when analysis techniques would be more advanced.

India launches Chandrayaan-2 to the Moon, a day after the 50th anniversary of the first steps on the Moon. The launch vehicle is the Mark III (GSLV M III).

Luca Parmitano returns to the ISS space station for Expedition 60. It is the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing.

In July 2019, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced that it was planning to deorbit Tiangong-2 in the near future, but did not provide a specific date. The station subsequently performed a controlled reentry on July 19, 2019, and burned up in the South

Hayabusa-2 successfully lands on asteroid Ryugu for the second time, to collect a second sample, this time in area C01, where it created a 10m diameter crater on April 5.

The giant Stratolaunch space transport system completes its first test flight.

Space X launches Falcon Heavy, which successfully orbits ArabSat. All three boosters land safely (two simultaneously on the ground a few dozen meters apart, and one offshore in the ocean, on the “Of course I still love you” pad, named after Iain Banks’ science fiction

Israeli probe Beresheet fails to soft-land on the Moon, crashes due to high speed.

Hayabusa-2 fires a second explosive projectile, this time made of copper, at the asteroid Ryugu, creating a crater about a dozen meters in diameter.

A serious malfunction of the new MAX8 SW for the attitude control of the Boeing 737 MAX causes the crash of a plane in Ethiopia, killing everyone on board, among other incidents. Government agencies in Europe, the United States, Canada and other countries, within a

Richard Branson’s British Virgin Galactic sends the first paying passenger into space, on a suborbital flight. It is the second flight in two months for the reusable spacecraft Unity. The ticket costs 250,000 USD.

Cambridge, UK. Tony Foulds, 83, is present at the formation flyover of several USAF planes, along with thousands of people. They remember the event 75 years earlier, when Tony, an 8-year-old boy, was there in that meadow, and a B-17 (flying fortress) was returning from