The US, China, India, Europe and Japan all have exciting missions on the horizon in 2026. Many of them are collaborative feats.
Articles on JAXA
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From exploring the Moon to revealing mysteries of the solar system, space agencies around the world are gearing up for an exciting year of launches and flybys.
Asteroids aren’t supposed to emit gas when they get close to the Sun in the way that comets do, but Phaethon didn’t get the memo.
The mission provided details about how to deflect an asteroid should one threaten Earth in future.
Japan is one of several countries that weren’t part of the space race of the 1950s and 1960s looking toward the Moon. They’ve now become the 5th country to have landed on its surface.
Japan’s space agency is landing its first lunar probe this week. This makes the Moon an increasingly busy target for spacefaring nations – with conflicting political stances among them.
Expect lots of space missions to launch this coming year, with exciting new science to follow.
A Japanese spacecraft is expected to reach Martian orbit in 2025 to collect material from the surface of the moon Phobos before returning to Earth by 2029.
In September 2023, a NASA mission successfully brought samples of an asteroid down to Earth in a sealed capsule. Analysis of these samples may reveal information about the origins of the universe.
Missions to asteroids are opening up the secrets of the Solar System
China has invested massively in its space capabilities in recent years and is now a major competitor with the US. But according to a space policy expert, the US still dominates space by most measures.
The discovery of a key component of RNA in samples from asteroid Ryugu adds weight to the theory that basic organic molecules may have arrived on Earth from outer space.
Rubble pile asteroids are like giant space cushions, floating around the Solar System for billions of years. Here’s what that means for planetary defence.
The Hayabusa2 mission brought a piece of asteroid Ryugu back to Earth, where it has helped scientists resolve a long-standing puzzle.
What did Mercury look like as BepiColombo swung by?
It is a pretty spectacular achievement to not only rendezvous with an asteroid as it is whizzing around the Sun but also collect a sample. Here’s what the researchers learned.
JAXA has announced a mission to visit the two moons of Mars and return a rock sample to Earth.
Top contributors
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Professor, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland
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Associate Professor, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
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Post Doctoral Researcher in Achondrite Meteorites, The Open University
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Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University
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Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open University
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Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University
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Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University
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Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
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Federal Astrophysicist and External Relations Lead at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian Institution
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Associate Professor, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University
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Assistant Professor of Space and International Relations, Johns Hopkins University
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Assistant Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University
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Professor, Curtin University
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Associate Professor of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
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Lecturer in Planetary Science, The Open University