2025: Space Missions to Watch

2024 was a big year for space exploration. NASA sent its Europa Clipper to Jupiter’s moon Europa, and SpaceX’s Starship made its first successful landing. China’s Chang’e 6 mission brought back samples from the far side of the Moon. The International Space Station hosted private missions too, like Axiom Mission 3. But 2025 is set to be even more exciting. NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) will deliver science and tech payloads to the Moon using commercial landers. Companies like Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Firefly Aerospace will participate. They’ll carry experiments to study lunar geology and test new tech for future human missions. NASA will also launch the SPHEREx observatory in February 2025. It will survey the sky in near-infrared light, mapping over 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars in the Milky Way. This will help astronomers understand galaxy origins and the distribution of water and organic molecules. The European Space Agency (ESA) will test its Space Rider spaceplane in the third quarter of 2025. It’s a reusable spacecraft for scientific experiments in low Earth orbit. Researchers will study plant growth, material behavior, and biological processes in microgravity. They’ll also test new telecommunication systems and robotic tools. Japan’s M2/Resilience mission will launch in January 2025. It will study lunar soil and test water-splitting to produce oxygen and hydrogen. This is important for long-term lunar exploration. The mission will also demonstrate new navigation systems and autonomous rover technology. China’s Tianwen-2 mission will launch in May 2025. It aims to collect samples from the near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa and study the comet 311P/PANSTARRS. This will help scientists understand the early solar system and the origins of water and organic molecules. Several space agencies will perform deep-space flybys in 2025. ESA and JAXA’s BepiColombo will make its sixth Mercury flyby. NASA’s Europa Clipper will perform a Mars flyby, and ESA’s Hera mission will also flyby Mars. NASA’s Lucy mission will flyby the asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, and ESA’s JUICE mission will flyby Venus. These missions will push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe and inspire future generations to explore space.