2024 in spaceflight

2024 in spaceflight

Boeing Starliner SpaceX's Starship booster return during test flight 5 Europa Clipper Chang'e 6
Orbital launches
First	1 January
Last	24 November
Total	224
Successes	218
Failures	4
Partial failures	2
Catalogued	122
National firsts
Satellite	Senegal
Space traveller	Belarus  Turkey
Rockets
Maiden flights	Angara A5 / Orion Ariane 62 Gravity-1 KAIROS Long March 6C New-type satellite carrier rocket Vulcan Centaur VC2S
Retirements	Delta IV Heavy Vega
Crewed flights
Orbital	9
Orbital travellers	28
Suborbital	5
Suborbital travellers	30
Total travellers	58
v t e

For the fourth year in a row, new world records were set for both orbital launch attempts and successful orbital launches. So far, the year saw the successful first launch of Vulcan Centaur, Gravity-1, Ariane 6 (partially successful), and notably more developmental launches of SpaceX's Starship, including the first ever landing on Flight 5. Additionally, the final launch of a Delta family rocket occurred in April with a Delta IV Heavy. In May, China launched the Chang'e 6, the first sample return from the far side of the Moon. The Polaris Dawn mission conducted the first ever commercial spacewalk in September.

In terms of other national-level scientific space missions, NASA's Europa Clipper probe, and ESA's Hera probes launched in October 2024. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter ended operation in January due to damages to rotor blades after its 72nd flight. This year is also expected to see many lunar landing attempts. JAXA's SLIM and Intuitive Machines' IM-1 have successfully survived soft-landings on the Moon but were tipped over during final moments of descent.

Two crewed space stations, the International Space Station (ISS) and Tiangong, are in operation in 2024. In terms of crewed missions, the ISS will be visited by Expedition 70, 71, and 72, while Shenzhou 18 and 19 will visit Tiangong. The ISS also hosted the private crew of Axiom Mission 3.

This year saw Alper Gezeravcı become the first Turkish astronaut, as a crew member on the Axiom Mission 3. Belarus also had its first citizen reach space, when cosmonaut Maryna Vasileuskaya launched on Soyuz MS-25 (not counting Pyotr Klimuk, Vladimir Kovalyonok, and Oleg Novitsky who were Soviet or Russian citizens of Belarusian origin when they traveled to space). In addition, British citizen Nicolina Elrick became the first ethnic Singaporean to reach space when Blue Origin NS-26 soared past the Kármán line on 2024 August 29th.