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

Pioneer 11 reaches the 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 located in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, or the direction of the Solar Apex: the direction in which the Sun points in its motion

Cape Canaveral, Florida. Blue Origin successfully launched its new New Glenn launcher on the first attempt. The payload was deployed into space, and the first stage was recovered. Perfect! This is the second company (also private) to successfully recover the first stage after launching the

Starship Flight 10 was a complete success, including the controlled return of the Starship 37 spacecraft to the surface of the Indian Ocean and the B16 Super Heavy first stage into the Atlantic Ocean. In space, the successful deployment of Starship Starlink was also a

Jim Lovell dies at 97. He flew in space with NASA four times, on Gemini VII, Gemini XII, Apollo VIII, and Apollo XIII. He is remembered in popular culture for this last mission, particularly for his famous phrase, “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” and for

Eighth Starship mission. The giant first stage is recovered by the Mechazilla for the third time, but the Starship shuttle experiences a problem with its Raptor engines, loses its trim, and disintegrates in flight.

Shackleton Connecting Ridge at the lunar South Pole. Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 probe lands on the lunar surface near Shackleton Crater, a site of great interest for future human missions to the Moon, but it lands on one side, rendering its solar panels unusable. Consequently, electrical

Mare Crisium, Moon. The Blue Ghost Mission 1 probe from the private startup Firefly Aerospace of Austin, Texas, launched on January 15th aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and arrived on the Moon, in Mare Crisium. It followed a long and winding path to the

Orbital Pad A, Starbase, Texas. Mission: Seventh fully integrated Starship test flight with Booster 14, Ship 33. Payload: 10 Starlink simulators. Stats: Seventh Starship launch, third Super Heavy recovery attempt. SpaceX successfully replicates its previous feat of capturing a booster that returned to Earth. But

Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin’s New Glenn safely reached its intended orbit during today’s NG-1 mission, achieving its primary objective. New Glenn’s seven BE-4 engines fired the second stage into its final orbit after two successful

Launch Complex 39A, Cape Canaveral, Florida. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off into space Wednesday carrying a pair of lunar landers on a journey to our closest celestial neighbor, kicking off what is expected to be a busy year of lunar missions amid a

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe successfully makes a very close flyby of the Sun, just 6 million km away, traveling at 710 km/h (197 km/s) and surviving temperatures of 983°C.

Mission VV25: The European Vega-C rocket, with significant Italian participation and led by the Italian company Avio, launched its Sentinel-1C payload into orbit: an Earth observation mission for the European Copernicus programme. Vega-C is an extremely versatile launcher in terms of reachable orbits, payloads, and

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 Starship test flight. The massive first stage re-enters base, incredibly successfully on the first try, and is caught by the Mechazilla’s chopsticks. The Starship spacecraft reenters the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and maneuvers to a

Astronauts on the Polaris Dawn mission, operated by Space X, performed a spacewalk (EVA – Extra Vehicular Activity) at an altitude of 743 km. This was the first EVA outside of LEO (Low Earth orbit) in over half a century (since the Apollo missions), the

China. Experimentally, analyzing samples brought back to Earth by the Chinese Chang’e-5 mission, it has been confirmed that typical lunar ULM-1 crystals contain a lot of water. They were collected in 2020 from a mid-latitude part of the Moon, at 43 degrees latitude—an area normally

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

The Chang’e 6 mission’s atmospheric reentry probe successfully re-entered the Moon’s far side, carrying precious rock and lunar regolith samples 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 (Tuvan Cihangir Atasever, Anand “Andy” Harish Sadhwani, Irving Izchak Pergament, Giorgio Manenti).

Bill Anders, the astronaut in the famous Apollo VIII photograph, dies in the crash of his plane on San Juan Island, near Seattle, off the coast of Washington state. He was 90 years old.

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

The fourth Starship launch with the Super Heavy launcher was successful, and the launcher managed to re-enter the spacecraft, slowing to a controlled, vertical stop, just above the water’s surface, as planned, before plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. The following hour, the Starship spacecraft glided

Boeing’s Atlas V Starliner with ULA (United Launch Alliance) has launched astronauts into space. It is the second private American spacecraft to do so. Two days later, it will dock with the International Space Station, carrying astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

China’s Chang’e-6 mission successfully lands on the floor (about 5,000 meters below mean lunar level) of the large Aitken crater, on the far side of the Moon, near the South Pole. It releases a small rover, which then retrieves the mother probe. It samples the

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 attempt, going farther than ever before, but disintegrated on its return over the Indian Ocean.

Malapert A crater, lunar south pole. The Odysseus probe lands on the lunar surface. After touching down, it falls onto its side, but its instruments remain functional, and the first photos will arrive a few days later. The Texas-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines, which developed

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe lands in Mare Nectaris, in the eastern equatorial region of the nearside of the Moon. The probe later discovers that it landed upside down due to an engine problem, but its instruments

The Psyche probe has launched, bound for the asteroid of the same name. It will be 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 trillion (today, our planet’s economy

Touchdown! A substantial sample of the asteroid Bennu has arrived on Earth, aboard 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 asteroid Apophis,

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 thus far the second nation 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 Earth control.

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

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

Boca Chica, Texas. Space X’s Starship, powered by its Super-Heavy booster, successfully leaves the launch pad. However, several things go wrong: the launch pad is severely damaged, some engines fail to ignite, and others shut down shortly after launch. Finally, the Starship fails to separate

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

Arianespace announces the loss of the Vega-C VV22 mission after launch at 10:47 PM local time in French Guiana (2:47 CET/1:47 GMT on December 21, 2022). The mission carried two payloads, the Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 Earth observation satellites, for Airbus Defence and Space.

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 on board, the SLS carries the Orion capsule into space in a demonstration for NASA’s Artemis

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

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 planned.

In a press conference, NASA revealed 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

The maiden launch of Vega C took place on July 13, 2022, at 15:13 CEST from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch was a success and delivered the Sentinel-1C satellite into orbit.

Cape Canaveral. 5:17 PM. A Space-X Falcon-9 rocket lifts off, marking the first privately operated mission to the ISS. Three entrepreneurs paid $55 million and a veteran NASA astronaut. The company and the American company Axiom intend to develop four Axiom modules attached to the

Early on Christmas morning, NASA’s revolutionary new space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, was successfully launched into space after blasting off atop a European Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. The launch marked the beginning 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 dived (at perihelion) into the upper part of the solar atmosphere (i.e., the solar corona), sampled particles, and measured its magnetic field for the first time. The passage actually occurred

Vanderberg, California. The DART mission, launched with a Space X Falcon 9, is to reach the asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos and impact one of them (small Dimorphos) to study technology for diverting the trajectory of potentially dangerous Near Earth Objects (NEOs).

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, is launched into space as an astrotourist, along with Blue Origin’s vice president of flight operations, Audrey Powers, and entrepreneurs Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Shield capsule describes a short parabola,

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

Van Horn, Texas. Jeff Bezos (of Amazon and Blue Origin) and his brother Mark, along with Wally Funk (formerly of Mercury 13, an unofficial candidate for space travel in the 1960s) and Dutchman Oliver Daemen, reached space for four minutes on a suborbital flight on

New Mexico, USA. Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson makes his first spaceflight, a suborbital flight at an altitude of 82 km (51 mi) in a horizontal takeoff vehicle called Unity. The craft carries six passengers. Branson thus becomes the first private individual to travel on a

China’s Tianwen-1 mission (天问) successfully lands the Zhurong rover on Mars. China thus becomes the second nation in the world, after the United States (first with Viking 1 and 2 in 1976), to successfully make a controlled landing on the red planet, maintaining full mission

NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft lifts off from orbit around the asteroid Bennu, carrying its precious and massive cargo of asteroid material, to begin its long two-year journey to Earth. It will arrive on September 23, 2023.

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 successfully in the early stages, but crashed upon landing.

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

The American Parker probe “touches” the Sun, or rather, temporarily dives (at perihelion) into the upper part of the solar atmosphere (i.e., the solar corona), samples particles, and measures its magnetic field for the first time. In reality, the transit will only be reported in

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

Cape Canaveral. Space X’s Crew Dragon spacecraft made its third launch to the ISS. 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 (known to friends as Ginny) completes its first automated flight. This is a first in spaceflight history. And it opens up previously unimaginable possibilities for the exploration of atmospheric worlds. The sky is NOT the limit. The atmospheric density

NASA’s Perseverance mission completes its entry into the Martian atmosphere, the so-called 7 Minutes of Terror. Everything goes according to plan, and the massive rover gently lands on the ground, carrying the Ingenuity drone helicopter. A photo is also taken of the rover being lowered

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 a satellite into orbit from a high-altitude plane.

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

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 successfully lands on the moon, collects a two-kilogram sample of lunar soil, and then launches again and automatically connects with its orbiting mother probe.

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

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

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, carrying American astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, successfully reentered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, returning from the International Space Station (ISS). This was 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 rover (天问) 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 two years.

Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. Launch of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Amal (Hope) probe, launched aboard a Mitsubishi H-IIA rocket. 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 aboard the Falcon 9 and the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will

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