NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission is designed to help advance planetary defense efforts to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit. These are collectively known as near-earth objects, or NEOs. NEO Surveyor consists of a single scientific instrument: a 50 centimeter (nearly 20 inch) diameter telescope that operates in two heat-sensing infrared wavelengths. It will be capable of detecting both bright and dark asteroids, which are the most difficult type to find.
Heliocentric L1Dragonfly is NASA's 4th New Frontiers program mission that will send a robotic rotorcraft to fly within the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan to sample materials and determine surface composition in different geologic settings, advancing humanity's search for the building blocks of life. The craft is a large quadcopter with double rotors with mass of about 875 kg, featuring rotors of 1.35 m in diameter. It can fly through several kilometers within an hour and will perform 1 flight per Titan day (~16 Earth days). During the planned 3.3-year mission, Dragonfly is expected to cover distance up to several hundred km. Dragonfly will use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) to power its instruments. The planned science instrument suite is: * DragonCam: Camera Suite * DrACO: Drill for Acquisition of Complex Organics * DraMS: Mass Spectrometer * DraGNS: Gamma-ray and Neutron Spectrometer * DraGMet: Geophysics and Meteorology
Heliocentric N/AESA's Comet Interceptor consists of three spacecraft which will be positioned at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, where they will wait for a long-period comet or an interstellar object to come by. Once the desired target appears, the spacecraft will separate and perform a flyby of the target, compiling a detailed 3D profile of a comet.
Heliocentric N/AExoMars 2028 is a second mission of two-part European Space Agency astrobiology project to search for evidence of life on Mars. The primary objective is to land the rover at a site with high potential for finding well-preserved organic material, particularly from the very early history of the planet. The rover is expected to travel several kilometers during its mission. The European rover will be the first mission to combine the capability to move across the surface and to study Mars at depth. It will collect samples with a drill down to a depth of 2 m and analyze them with next-generation instruments in an onboard laboratory. Underground samples are more likely to include biomarkers, since the tenuous martian atmosphere offers little protection from radiation and photochemistry at the surface.
Heliocentric N/ASOLAR-C is a Japan-led international mission with the cooperation by the US and European countries. It aims to gain new insights into the fundamental physical mechanisms driving solar plasma dynamics by performing three simultaneous UV observations. The first consists to observe the broad range of temperatures, spanning over three orders of magnitude from the 10,000 Kelvin chromosphere to the million Kelvin corona, and even to the 15 million Kelvin solar flares. The second consists to resolve the elemental structures at high spatial (0.4 arcsec) and temporal (1 sec) resolution and trace their evolutions by increasing the ability to collect the solar UV rays 10 to 30 times as much as before. The third consists to conduct a high dispersion spectroscopy (equivalent to a velocity resolution of 2 km/s) to obtain spectroscopic information that enables quantitative diagnostics (such as velocity, temperature, density, ionization degree, and abundance). By combining the three observations, SOLAR-C can analyze the dynamically evolving solar atmospheres over a wide altitude range from the chromosphere to the corona while resolving elemental structures.
Sun-Synchronous OrbitELSA-M (End of Life Services by Astroscale – Multiple) is Astroscale’s commercial satellite service designed to remove inactive satellites from orbit. It is the world's first End-of-Life (EOL) service for prepared, full-sized commercial end customers, harnessing magnetic capture for multiple satellite removals. The in-orbit demonstration mission is a partnership programme led by Astroscale and supported by the UK Space Agency, ESA, and the commercial satellite operator Eutelsat through the Sunrise Partnership Project, a public–private partnership between ESA and Eutelsat Group. The mission will safely approach and dock with a Eutelsat OneWeb communications satellite at its end of life, then remove it from orbit. This world first commercial ‘de-orbit as a service’ demonstration showcases the technologies and operational capability needed to reduce collision risk in Earth’s increasingly crowded Low Earth Orbit.
Polar OrbitA batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A batch of 25 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A pair of Chinese satellites reported to be for "Earth observation technological testing and validation" purposes. Actual usage not known.
A batch of 9 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Chinese state owned SatNet constellation operated by the China Satellite Network Group.…
Firefly Alpha's Flight 7 is a test flight and return-To-Flight for the launch vehicle after its April 2025 launch failure. It will test and validate …
EchoStar 25 is a direct broadcast satellite, built on the proven Maxar 1300 series platform, which will deliver content across North America. It will…
A batch of 25 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Note: Payload and customer identities were not publicly announced. 4th of the BlackSky Gen-3 high resolution Earth-imaging satellites.
Third flight of the KAIROS launch vehicle. 5 satellites will be on board: * TATARA-1R * SC-Sat1a * HErO * AETS-1 * Nutsat-3 (TASA/Taiwan)
A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.