2024 in Review: Space

United Launch Alliance launched the Vulcan rocket on its first certification mission on Jan. 8 from Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, carrying Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lunar lander and Celestis Memorial Spaceflights’ deep space Enterprise Flight. The second of two Vulcan certification flights was launched on Oct. 4.

Far exceeding original plans for five flights within 30 days, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter mission ended on Jan. 25 after 72 flights since Apr. 19, 2023, totaling more than 2 hr. of flight time. Operating over featureless sand ripples, Ingenuity’s visual navigation system could not find enough features to track, creating an erroneous high horizontal velocity that led to an abrupt attitude change on touchdown, snapping off all four rotor blades.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s SLIM lunar lander made a pinpoint landing on Jan. 20, Japan’s first soft landing on the Moon, but tipped onto its side due to a thruster failure. Before touchdown, the lander had released two small rovers. The lander survived three lunar nights but lost contact on Apr. 28. Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 commercial lunar lander, Odysseus, touched down on Feb. 22 but was crippled on landing.

The Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) mission in April completed its rendezvous and began proximity operations around a large piece of space debris—a spent H-2A rocket upper stage. By early December, the spacecraft had approached to within about 15 m of the object, the closest approach to space debris by a commercial company through rendezvous and proximity operations.

After 60 years, the Delta launch vehicle program came to an end on April 9 with the launch of the final Delta IV Heavy rocket by United Launch Alliance from Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, on the NROL-70 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Developed by Douglas Aircraft and first launched on May 13, 1960, more than 300 Delta rockets were launched with a 95% success rate.

During China’s sixth robotic lunar mission, the Chang’e lander and rover touched down on the far side of the Moon on June 1. The lander collected almost 2 kg of surface samples, which were carried to lunar orbit by an ascender module that docked with an orbiter. The samples were transferred to a reentry module that returned to Earth on June 25, landing by parachute in Inner Mongolia.

Developed by ArianeGroup and operated by Arianespace, Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket was launched for the first time on July 9 from a newly built dedicated launchpad at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The inaugural demonstration flight, designated VA262, launched into low Earth orbit several satellites and experiments from space agencies, companies, research institutes and universities.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth uncrewed on Sept. 6, after three months at the International Space Station (ISS). Launched on June 5, the flight was the first with astronauts aboard, the spacecraft’s third orbital flight and its second return from the ISS. After Starliner experienced helium leaks and thruster issues, NASA decided to return the spacecraft without its crew. The two astronauts are scheduled to return in late March 2025.

SpaceX launched its prototype Starship on a fifth integrated flight test on Oct. 13 from Boca Chica, Texas. The Starship upper stage flew a suborbital trajectory to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy Booster returned to the launch site where, for the first time, it was captured by arms on the launch tower. A booster capture was aborted on the sixth test flight on Nov. 19, the last for the Block 1 Starship.

In 2024, China launched two new Long March rockets, both developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. The kerosene-fueled Long March 6C was launched on May 6 from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center carrying four satellites. The medium-lift Long March 12 was launched on Nov. 30 from the new Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site carrying experimental payloads.

Avio’s Vega C small launch vehicle was launched from the Kourou spaceport on Dec. 6, carrying Europe’s third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite. Vega C returned to flight after an upper-stage failure in December 2022. Avio subsequently signed contracts to upgrade the launch facilities for higher flight rates and to advance development of the upgraded Vega E, aiming for a first launch in 2027-28.